LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap.. Copyright No. 

Shelf....Jti.lI '-'^^ 



iioo 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Woods and Waters 



poems 



BY 

RUFUS J. CHILDRESS 



HIS FIRST BOOK 



LOUISVILLE 

CHAS. T. DEARING 

1900 



TWO Copies RECKivan 



FEB "^ ^1 1900 

54359 



COPYRIGHTED IQOO, 
BY RUFUS J. CHILDRESS. 






TO 

JUDGE JOHN WHEELER McGEE, 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 

BY THE AUTHOR, 

RUFUS J. CHILDRESS. 



Friend ! who ne'er hast set foot on my hearth, 
But darest heed my heart's sincere behest, 
And dost become my Muse's helpful guest. 

The Man of Boss and In Memoriam's birth 

Was due to friendship. Though all hearts seem dearth 
To-day of that whereof those bards were blest. 
Yet, as these poems to all who read attest 

True friendship has not wholly gone from earth. 

had our Cosby such good fortune known, 

The songs he sang, to gladden eyes that weep, 

Would still chime on and many a spirit move ; 
But thou art first, as through this volume shown. 
To kindly aid, ere shadows o'er him creep, 
A poet here with songful soid of love. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Dream and Dread 7 

At School i8 

A Fruitless Mission 20 

Mimes 24 

To An Oak 26 

A Strange Hunt 28 

In the Gloom 58 

My Lady's Hand 60 

My Heart 62 

Hers 65 

At Hand 67 

Trees and Birds 70 

Sister Dolorosa 96 

My Lady's Sleeves 98 

Home of My Heart loi 

My First Teacher 102 

Katy-did Rondels 108 

In the Air iio 

Strayed ill 

In the Old Roadway 116 

A June Carol 119 

Jessie or Jessica, Which? 121 

Estranged 124 

Ode to a Robin 127 

May Days 131 

Disillusion 133 

Zoar 135 

The Hero 140 

Juliette 141 

Bells of St. Patrick's Church 143 



Contents. 

PAGE 

Ballade of the Loveliest Girl 145 

To a Perfect Poem 147 

To a Dead Singer 149 

By the River 151 

A Song of the Forest 153 

Enchantment 156 

Love 159 

Inspiration 161 

Love Sub-rosa 165 

Over the Walls of Traffic 167 

Daphne 169 

Mary 172 

Baby's 174 

In Her Girlhood 176 

The City of Song 179 

My Lady's Sister 182 

A Sail— Triolets 184 

The Reed Whistle . .. . • 186 

Beauty Ideal 188 

Dewdrops 192 

"The Evening Land" . 193 

To Southern Soldiers 195 

Florence 197 

Dangers 199 

The Willow 201 

Nora 203 

My Beloved 204 

A Musical Duel 206 

The Last Rose 207 



M 



DREAM AND DREAD. 

Y soul, by psychic forces tossed, 
I seemed among huge mountains lost. 



A fleet of clouds by night, by day, 
About their crests at anchor lay ; 
Like ships against a murky sky, 
They trembled in the offing high. 
Each sheeted pennon beat and beat 
Till shattered, frayed by motion fleet ; 
Was piece by piece at once displaced, 
Then dashed about in wanton haste. 
Like some loose sail or frantic bark, 
Cast into valleys dense and dark ! 
Now over cliffs that rise aloof, 
Now under boughs that weave a roof, 
In aisles that daylight sparse adorns, 
Where scarce a friendly sign forewarns 
Of crevice carved to mountain's core, 
Where subterranean waters roar, 
- Whence troops of echoes upward swell ; 
Or jutting crag of aspect fell. 
Where nothing shields or intervenes 
From perilous verge that outward leans 
Whence one could fall o'er steep defiles, 
Through fields of air for miles and miles : 



Woods and Waters. 

Or mountain pool that stilly heaves 

In slumber 'neath o'erlying leaves, 

Whose surface hidden, treacherous snare, 

Engulfs the wanderer unaware ; 

Or wall of stone that safe appears, 

In equipoise has stood for years. 

Yet, tottering to its central rock. 

Lets go at length with deadly shock. 

And comes — the earth as hurled from under- 

In avalanches bellowing thunder ! 

My mountain path by these beset 
With all the horrors they beget. 
Was day by day imperiled sore, 
By night imperiled more and more; 
For beasts of prey by hunger urged, 
From mountain fastnesses emerged ; 
Soft-footed there, on forage bent. 
Wolves wondrous keen of sight and scent. 
In body gaunt, with muffled growl. 
Long, long unfed, were wont to prowl ! 
And panthers also loitered there, 
Whose eyes shot forth a yellow glare. 
Whose piercing scream of eldritch birth, 
With fear impregnates air and earth ; 
It curls about the crag that leans. 
And echoes down the dark ravines ; 
Creeps up among the mountain cells. 
And still reverberates and swells; 



Dream and Dread. 

Seeks out, as cast from brazen lungs, 
And gives each fissure tiny tongues ! 



Thus horrified, oppressed with care, 
With scarce a hope I struggled there; 
Alone, more like a frantic ghost. 
Through underbrush that thickened most 
Where ivy wove o'er murk and mire 
A mesh among wild thorn and brier ; 
Still shrinking shocked, with shying tread, 
As though I met my own self dead; 
With heart forlorn, o'er footways bare, 
As urged by some untold despair ; 
Down precipice, up pathway higher. 
For days and nights through dangers dire, 
Along some range that southward led, 
I wandered full of dream and dread! 



At length I stand with flurried breath. 
By heights that seem to mock at death; 
Whose rugged walls loom up sublime, 
The abode of gods defying Time ! 
Beneath a sky of strangest gray. 
The hill-tops southward roll away ; 
But from the west with angry glow 
Come clouds most lurid flying low, 
Emitting oft corruscant gleams 
O'er forests wrapped in feverish dreams ; 



Woods and Waters. 

Beyond, between whose quivering trees, 
I catch a glimpse of troubled seas ! 



Now half in silent, sentient mood, 
His strength reserved, with speed imbued, 
Like some young courier, dilettante, 
Who dares among the trees to canter, 
The Wind's first motion as in play, 
On outer edge begins the fray ; 
But conscious-like, surveys the scene, 
Assumes at length a fiercer mien, 
The Storm's precursor, boding harm. 
Urged on to spread the wild alarm, 
Who dallying not as somewhat loth, 
Into the forest gallops forth ! 



Instinct with fear from which I start. 
The lull that follows haunts my heart 
With feelings of infinitude 
Wherein a menace seems to brood. 
A throbbing sound that nears and nears, 
A rumble as of crashing spheres. 
With dire alarm from outer space. 
Comes writhing in the air's embrace ; 
And thus creating wind and fire. 
And clouds that seem a seething pyre, 
The Storm in wild delirious mood. 
Is hurled against the screaming wood 



Dream and Dread. 

Red lightnings flare while keen and loud \ 

Leap sudden peals from raging cloud, \ 

Like bombs when Grant was in the South, \ 

Sent whizzing from the cannon's mouth. ,j 

From jabbing drops in downward race ; 

That gather force and stab the face, ■ 

To floods that seem an ocean's birth, \ 

The rain in torrents drenches earth ! i 



The fife and drum, the trumpet's blare. 

The martial sounds that, in the air. 

Sustaining hearts when death is nigh, 

Make soldiers joyful there to die ; 

The tramp of feet, the dreadful battle, 

The clash of swords, the muskets' rattle ; 

The artillery's boom with livid flashing, 

The shrieking shell through treetops crashing j 

Or thunder nearing still that flows 

Continuous forth from buffaloes 

Stampeded on the jarring plain ; 

Indeed, the roaring of the main 

That lashes mountains far around, 

Were silenced by that awful sound ! 

It were with all its furious din, 

Its gathered force from twist within. 

As mastodons aroused once more. 

In combat through dense woodlands tore ! 



Woods and Waters. 

If all that time of old gave birth, 
And each that ever breathed on earth, 
With all their curbless force restored, 
Along the plains where woodlands roared, 
Brought face to face on sanguine field 
With pachyderms that scorned to yield, 
The thump of hoof that jars the ground. 
The fleshly thud, that deadly sound ; 
The sudden rush, the stopping short, 
Deep breathing and the groan and snort; 
The clash of tusks and bellowings wild 
When columns into heaps were piled ; 
The crash of boughs among the trees, 
Though like the boom of angry seas, . 
Were hushed with all their deafening roar, 
By sounds the storm made passing o'er ! 



Ah, should ten thousand horsemen speed. 
And following close some racer's lead. 
Sweep back and forth, resistless tide, 
Across some mountain's rugged side; 
In vales below, on peaks aloof, 
Up steeps beyond with iron hoof. 
If I should hear them beat and beat, 
As stout of girth, with ruthless feet. 
Until beneath their tread I feel 
The solid mountain quake and reel ; 
If I should see them man by man 
Come yelling forth, a frenzied clan. 



Dream and Dread. 

With eyes dilate like bulbs of fire, 
With voices tense that scorned to tire, 
Each armor-clad, by oaths defiled. 
Still riding furious shrieking wild, 
With pointed spear or flashing lance, 
Jab flints till sparkles gleam and glance ; 
Or, lifting high with forceful stroke, 
In shivers rend the steadfast oak ; 
From far and near, with hellish glee. 
If they should set their eyes on me, 
With sharp reproof, with blighting blame, 
Each call aloud my lonely name. 
Till all earth seem a burning pyre 
And all of heaven reflect the fire, 
And tumbling heavier into spray. 
The Ocean break and blow away ; 
And all with clamors that would scare 
The fearless lion from his lair, 
Whose thunders with afright extreme 
Would silence even the eagle's scream ; 
Were small in every phase and form. 
To sounds made by the fiery storm 
When hurled against the helpless wood 
In fear wherein I lonely stood 
Or wandered slowly to and fro. 
Sojourning face to face with woe. 

Thus I, amid the clash of gales, 

A moment dwelt — but language fails ; 



Woods and Waters. 

Yet, shown to me by flaming brand, 

For leagues along the rugged land, 

Was sight of elemental rage. 

No human prowess could assuage ; 

Force mystic that, intense and taut, 

At war on matter carnage wrought 

Sublime as earthquake's awful shock 

That shivers mountains made of rock, 

From source revealed not, depth profound, 

Which, like the firmament, knows no bound ! 



Still somewhat dazed I made my way 
Through heaps of wreckage there that lay, 
Of underbrush to frazzles torn. 
Of trees of leaf and foliage shorn, 
Of bough and vine by sudden blast 
Into a matted tangle cast, 
Or giant oaks among the wood 
Uprooted that for ages stood ; 
Thus I, with half my courage gone. 
Through ruin wandered on and on ; 
But while fatigued and shorn of hopes 
I came at length to southern slopes 
That seemed unharmed of stormy gales. 
And found them marked with iron rails. 
Which from the eastward deigned to stray 
And far to westward swept away. 



14 



Dream and Dread. 

There tunnels pierce the mountain's side, 
Deep cuts the frowning bluff divide ; 
The rails are laid the hills between, 
And trestles span each dark ravine, 
Like some aerial palisade 
That looms above the forest shade. 
And while I stand in gladsome thought 
To view what human hands had wrought, 
Thereby, like some enchanted thing, 
Each rail began to lowly sing, 
When puff-a-puff, with rapid bound. 
There came a train that jarred the ground. 



With beckoning sign, with frantic cry, 

I grasp and wave my hat on high ! \ 
The brakes are set with clash of steel, 

And harshly grates each slackening wheel ; \ 

Amid the din the smoke escapes i 

And forms aloof fantastic shapes ; I 

Still slowing up, poised on its track, | 

A form so massive, pulsive, black, \ 

The train, within the stilly wood, j 

A breathing thing, a moment stood] j 

And while my eager soul adored, | 

I scarce had time to leap aboard, \ 

When, as by unseen giant led, \ 

With sudden bound it forward sped, ' 

O'er valley glides with swiftness rash, '. 

Darts into tunnels with a flash ; 3 

15 '\ 



Woods and Waters. 

Now, like the flight of albatross, 

Long level stretches sweeps across ; 

With steadfast flange that cannot fail. 

Each strong wheel hugs the clanging rail; 

But strange enough I see no one, 

Upon this train I am alone ! 

I spy no face from where I stand, 

And on the throttle see no hand ! 

Along each aisle I stalk and stare, 

With every seat about me bare ! 

I hear each wheel that keenly wails 

Careering o'er the jointed rails, 

And on the curves again, again, 

I feel the swaying of the train ! 

From coach to coach, from place to place, 

I stride, but see no human face ! 

I seize the brake and swing around. 

But only hear the monstrous sound 

The train makes on its metal track 

From rocky hilltops sounding back, 

Like thunder solemn mystery shrouds 

That lumbers through the land of clouds. 

Now with myself in furious mood 

I struggle, struggle unsubdued, 

All frantic, such is my despair. 

To leap into the darksome air ! 



But from the train I could not go, 
Still face to face with utter woe ; 



i6 



Dream and Dread. 

Yet saw, when most oppressed with dread, 

The gleam of city lights ahead ! 

They were to me a fairy scene, 

As speeding forward down between 

Rays parallel like golden woof, 

Above the housetops, over roof, 

Along a trestle's graceful span 

The train with lessening tremor ran. 

I now perceived, all danger past. 

The train was slackening up at last ; 

The brakes applied, strange joy I felt, 

For gratitude I humbly knelt; 

My soul aroused, then said to me : 

^^Man, from thyself thou canst not flee! " 



AT SCHOOL. 

AS in a glory of grace, 
Visions of radiance fleet, 
I saw the wild bloom of her face, 
Her dark hair unloosed from its place,, 
Falling in waves to her feet ! 



Sheen from the calyx that slips , 

Where the red blossoms unclose ! 
Such a blush held her face in eclipse, 
Like hues of the rainbow that dips 
Into a fountain of rose ! 



Like to a color more rare 

Put on a flower as it stirs, 
I had taken my love unaware. 
While she with most delicate care 
Painted the young face of her's I 



Like to a pomegranate stained, 

Dawn that some cloudiness streaks, 

Or glad heart by keen suffering pained,. 

I knew that the drug but profaned 
The exquisite bloom of her cheeks. 



At School. 

It was a time when romance 

Teaches the heart to adore ; 
For me she would brighten her glance. 
For me her rare charms would enhance. 

Longing and looking before ! 



Earth like a fairyland seemed, 

Golden my pathway forsooth ; 
I saw it, or my young heart dreamed, 
How brightly before me it gleamed, 
Lined with the glory of youth ! 



Now, as one weaned from his books, 

Flushed with a pleasant surprise, 
I have seemed, since bewitched by her looks, 
To roam among murmurous brooks, 
Lost in a green Paradise ! 



19 



A FRUITLESS MISSION. 

I WAS bred and born in the timber, 
Was reared where the tall trees stood j 
I played and romped, I remember, 

In the heart of the shadowy wood. 
I dreamed that the world was broader, 

And the vision my soul had won ; 
I stood on the woodland border 
And longed to walk in the sun ! 

Unpossessed of a knowledge valid 

What life enlightened receives; 
Was it strange that my face was pallid 

When abroad I looked from the leaves? 
As I with a step uncertain, 

A venturer onward went, 
I saw like a glowing curtain 

The sky in the distance bent. 

I saw the bright clouds flying 

The sunny heavens within, 
The broad green fields about me lying 

Possessed of contented men. 
I passed with their rural ditty 

These men and their happy homes. 
And a-far saw a brilliant city 

With glittering spires and domes. 



A Fruitless Mission. 

Oh ! as in a clime elysian, 

Before my wondering eyes 
It gleamed like a beautiful vision, 

Or sight of a Paradise ! 
Yet as I approached high-hearted, 

A youth with his soul aflame. 
Full half of its glory departed 

When into its streets I came. 



With furnace and forge and cinder, 

It seemed no more as sublime, 
For though there were signs of splendor, 

There were scenes of folly and crime. 
On walls that were steep and massive, 

On acres of toil and care, 
I gazed with feelings impassive 

And took my residence there. 



Beside the commercial sources 

I made my city-abode. 
In the midst of mechanical forces 

Where merciless Traffic strode. 
Stuck fast in the narrow passes 

I felt the factory's blight. 
Yet with the penniless masses 

I sternly strove for the Right.. 



Woods and Waters, 

But Wealth in combined endeavor, 

Supreme, wore the sceptered crown ; 
And Wrong was triumphant ever. 

The just and good trampled down. 
And the trusts imburdened and throttled, 

And broke the spirits of men, 
With greed in their beings wattled. 

And remorseless souls within. 



I heard the passionate murmur 

Of toilers whose hopes were gone, 
A voice growing fiercer, firmer. 

As the stifled years passed on. 
But deeper than woes that stung them, 

Like vernal grain in its sheath, 
I saw — unperceived among them — 

New forces wax underneath. 



I could not help but wonder 

Their feet upon Freedom's sod, 
When the people would rise in thunder 

And sweep them away like God ! 
No power that enslaves may hold them, 

Nor aught from their purpose turn ; 
Their hearts, though meshes enfold them, 

For vengeance steadily burn. 



A Fruitless Mission. 

And I thought of the hills and hollows, 

And the streams that chime in tune, 
And the moonlight night that follows 

The happiest day of June ; 
So I sat my wan face thither, 

For the rural scene and sight, 
Where tall green trees never wither, 

And thrushes sing with delight. 



And Wrong no more do I ponder — 

Wrong making the hot tears stream — 
But again through the woodlands wander 

Like one in a pleasant dream, 
Aye led by the golden fancy 

That eases the aching sense, 
The beautiful Necromancy 

Abounding in woodlands dense. 



23 



MIMES. 

HELPLESS and forlornly suited, 
I stand in the dismal glare 
Between two mysteries mooted, 

Two clouds that touch in the air; 
That touch in the air and mingle 

Into an invisible one, 
But down at the earth are single 
And strangely gleam in the sun. 

One cloud is a luminous yellow, 

And all earth from it receives 
A glow as fleeting and mellow 

As hues that the twilight weaves ; 
And one, like the vortical column 

That whirls from the factory-stack, 
With an aspect all ashen and solemn, 

Sweeps after in lethean track ! 

Thus down the ages forever 

Are these striving mysteries seen, 
The pursued overtaken never, 

Though narrow the space between. 
Yet within these gruesome dominions, 

In a panic that cannot quit, 
Mime-myriads on frantical pinions 

In utter confusion flit ! 



24 



Mimes. 

Above them a waxen crescent 

Like a tremulous lily drowns 
In a gulf that glows incandescent, 

Yet o'er a dark precipice frowns;; 
A crescent but timidly golden 

As pale from fright at its birth, 
Broke off in the aeons olden 

When Mars collided with earth ! 



Distraught with insatiate raging, 

Insane with eternal fears. 
Fierce war internecine waging 

Through all their embittered years, 
They sweep through the humid hollows, 

Like scarlet leaves on the blast. 
Fleeing wild from the cloud that follows. 

En-wound in its folds at last ! 



Like the atoms of dust that scatter 

Winds lift from the city-street. 
Their forms while the elements batter 

Against one another beat ; 
And man who strives and surpasses. 

And man who fails in his race, 
Each is of the glimmering masses 

Thus helplessly blown through space 



25 



TO AN OAK. 

DEAR TREE ! thy storm-defying branches, 
Since childhood's early dawn, 
I've heard them roar like avalanches 

Above the roof and lawn, 
And now I greet thee as a lover 
Unto thy strong arms drawn ! 

To thee I breathe a hope and seal it 

With secret kiss and vow 
And fiUal reverence, for I feel it 

Stir in my veins somehow, 
My youth thou hast so kindly sheltered 

With broadly drooping bough ! 

Long, long before the doorway standing, 

Thy towering form I see ; 
Thou dost possess an air commanding, 

So forest-born and free; 
Time was when thou wast lord of woodlands 

That stretched from sea to sea ! 

Still thou art stern and self-reliant, 

Like all thy sturdy class ; 
I see thee toss thy boughs defiant 

When northern gales harrass; 
And when the swift tornadoes strike thee, 

Dost lean and let them pass ! 

26 



To An Oak. 

The birds, I see them from my casements, 
Perch on thy top-most prongs, 

Or hide among thy green enlacements 
And sing their airy songs; 

And then for something, O, what is it ? 
The soul within me longs ! 

'Tis not regret nor cold arraignment 

Of what my life has been, 
But dreaming of some rare attainment. 

Or wish among good men 
To be a man and up and doing, 

A worthy name to win ! 

From storms that tear the woods asunder 
Thy trunk no shield doth screen, 

Nor from the lurid bolt nor thunder, 
Yet with majestic mien, 

O lordly oak ! dost thou survive them 
Triumphant and serene ! 

So I, with never sign of failing, 

Beneath whatever dome. 
Would fain beat back the winds assailing. 

Where e'er on earth I roam. 
When I shall cast aloof and wander 

Forth from my father's home ! 



27 



A STRANGE HUNT. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



THE Babe is born, a breathing mite ; 
The doting parent teaches, 
And, flower-like, towards the warmth and light, 

The little Hero reaches. 
The heart of hearts, the household gem ; 

Each, having pious missions. 
At once would fain reveal to him 
Life's hidden definitions. 

The mother rears him in her pride, 

And sweet her long endeavor; 
Dear is the task to lead and guide. 

And help him onward ever. 
But when the young Night parts his eyes 

First from the Day asunder. 
Stars on his childhood vision rise 

That fill his soul with wonder ! 

His face and cheek each fresher truth 

With new excitement flushes ; 
The schools receive the eager youth 

And knowledge on him rushes. 
Henceforward, passing on these grounds, 

Each one with wisdom gifted. 
Elucidates — explains — expounds — 

And seeks to leave uplifted. 

28 



A Strange Hunt, 

But many a thing confounds his sense 

Unsolved of lores or lectures, 
And much of mystery still augments 

The sum of earth's conjectures. 
It darkles o'er Life's upward slope, 

It baffles human reason; 
Mars the fair promise and the hope 

Of youth's ideal season. 



MENTAL EXULTATION. 

We seek the woods with laughter loud, 

Each heart for sport a-hunger ; 
Four youths are we, a jolly crowd. 

And I the watchful younger. 
Ah ! pity aught should make forlorn 

Our bright imaginations ! 
We seek the woods with hound and horn 

And rapt anticipations ! 

We love the chase in every phase; 

It breaks the forest's quiet. 
It gives us health and length of days 

Like to some magic diet. 
We love the bay of thundering hounds, 

Engulfed in briery hollows. 
Where each who hears the stirring sounds. 

With hasty effort follows ! 



29 



Woods and Waters. 



They strike a trail that's true, I wot \ 

They rush on like a river ! 
Their deep-toned mouthings fast and hot^ 

Set all the woods a-quiver; 
While Echo shrieks "Rejoice! Rejoice!" 

Like some deHrious dancer, 
Until the trees, instinct with voice, 

Clap hands and gladly answer. 



O'er spur and gneissoid inlet o'er, 

Down valleys dark and starry. 
They sweep on, pouring forth a roar 

That dooms the fleeing quarry ! 
Each rugged cliff o'er treetops hung, 

Each mound above the level. 
Or cave thereunder, finds a tongue 

And swells the gleeful revel ! 



They fill our hearts, these happy sounds, 

With joy in boundless measure ; 
With warm regard for faithful hounds, 

And deep, impulsive pleasure. 
And so through swamp or matted reeds, 

As hunters-born inherit, 
We are, where e'er the hot trail leads, 

One with our hounds in spirit. 



30 



A Strange Hunt. 



COMING TOGETHER. 

By blast of horn each understands, 

That draws forth quick replying, 
We gather in the meadow-lands 

Beside the forest lying. 
Toward secret haunts where game abounds 

We turn our ardent faces — 
Ho ! Nero, Draco, sapient hounds ! 

How each about us races ! 



There was no moon this special night, 

A clouded sky curved o'er us; 
But on a sudden there was light, 

Our shadows stretched before us ! 
It was a torrid, crimson hue. 

To deep vermilion gleaming ; 
Unto great lengths our shadows grew. 

Like slender goblins seeming ! 



Yelping, our hounds ran to us quelled 

As by some sight appalling; 
We looked behind us and beheld 

A fiery column falling ! 
As though with pent-up lightnings fraught 

A giant cone were riven. 
The flame along its full length caught, 

Illuming earth and heaven ! 



31 



Woods and Waters. 

In mid-air a brief instant hung 

With death a-tremble in it ; 
Mute silence fell on every tongue, 

And lay one fearful minute ! 
For like some lurid oblong bomb 

Cast downward, slightly leaning, 
It burst with sound that smote us dumb, 

Unreckoned in its meaning ! 

Still cowed, our hounds stood trembling near; 

What could have more undone us ? 
A strange unearthly spell of fear 

The meteor cast upon us ! 
At length we cheered and whooped aloud 

To prove ourselves undaunted; 
Somehow, like voices from a shroud, 

Our tones seemed truly haunted. 



A CHANGE OF GROUNDS. 

Two miles from home ! Two miles from home 

Two miles from friendly faces ! 
And though it seem the haunt of gnome, 

'Tis best of favored places. 
This wild, afar from farm and fence. 

Has been for ages noted 
To yield a golden recompense 

Unto the chase-devoted. 



32 



A Strange Hunt. 



How fast and far the rumor flies ! 

What draws the quarry lover ? 
It is the Hunter's Paradise, 

Renowned the country over ! 
Here tree and bush from Nature's hands 

Were cast in dense disorder, 
And Massac laves the pebbly sands 

Along its leafy border. 



Come, Nero, Draco, nose to ground! 

No trammel here should hamper ; 
Arouse the echoes far around 

And make the quarry scamper ! 
Ah ! never hound o'er miles of space 

Has swelled the quiring chorus, 
Were more impetuous in the chase 

Than these that leap before us ! 



Here trees abound that stand aloof 

Like sentinel and picket, 
O'er interlacing boughs that roof 

The vine-encumbered thicket; 
The lowlands bearing sign of storms 

And elemental forces. 
While ridges rear their scalloped forms 

Along the water-courses. 



33 



Woods and Waters. 

Here flash the brook and waterfall 

The stagnant lake relies on, 
And darkly gleams the forest-wall 

Against the far horizon. 
What of the chase ? . . . No answer comes 

From glen or region hilly ; 
Only the restless night-wind hums 

In tree-tops low and stilly ! 



What scream is this we hear so nigh ? 

What vocal lance that pierces ? 
Is it a bird's or woman's cry, 

Which but itself rehearses ? 
It leaps distraught to heights intense, 

A prolonged shriek Satanic ! 
It splits the ear ! It stuns the sense 1 

And gives the heart a panic ! 



From hills near by each echo flees, ■, 

As though it scorned resistance, :■ 

But trembles through the lowland trees t 

And dies down in the distance. i 

Each airy voice is hushed in fear, i 

Yet every nook and cranny \ 

In all the woodlands far and near, }-_ 

Seems filled with sound uncanny ,■ 

34 i 



A Strange Hunt, \ 

It is the Night-hawk's dire alarm, \ 

A wild tormented raver ! 

Whose sudden fury bodes no harm, .■ 

But shocks with eldritch quaver. \ 

It cuts the air this horrid night, \ 

Like leafless hazel switches, h 

And sounds as strange as hazels might, : 

If twirled by shriveled witches ! • 

When e'er we hear it dread comes o'er us 

Which, like the croak of raven ■ 

Or sheeted ghosts that pass before us, ; 

But tends to make us craven ; i 

Within ourselves dilutes the starch \ 

Or stamina that braces, \ 

Till ash as heaven's o'erclouded arch •; 

The pallor of our faces ! h 



ANOTHER CHANGE OF GROUNDS. 

The Collie field ! The ColHe field ! 

That once produced the staple. 
Now overgrown, its mystery sealed. 

With sassafras and maple ; 
Where some strange vine that climbs o'erhead, 

Hath gaudy blossoms flaunted . . . 
A thousand times I've heard it said, 

The Collie field was haunted ! 



35 



Woods and Waters. 

Twin slopes that fondle twin ravines 

For long years unattended, 
O sport among their grassy scenes ! 

It must be splendid ! splendid ! 
Here from the hillside through the trees, 

Behold them dimly gleaming; 
A sea of grass whose glories please 

Waves o'er them dreaming, dreaming. 



Haste, Nero ! Let us overawe 

The game, alert and knowing ! 
Comrades ! Here stands a young Papaw 

Upon the hill-top growing ! 
By large oaks shielded from the sun, 

An oderiferous shadow ; 
A happy omen ! Now for fun ! 

The Hunter's Eldorado ! 



O look beyond ! Like ripened hay 

The underbrush and grasses 
Into the darkness roll away 

In brown autumnal masses ; 
Among the trees that through them push 

With good endowments gifted 
The sumach, like a burning bush. 

Stands with red hands uphfted. 

36 



A Strange Hunt. 

A thousand stiff herbaceous stalks, 

Forlorn and weather-flouted, 
In broken columns crowd the walks. 

Like summer soldiers routed. 
Yet many a wild-grown hollyhock, 

With dahlias drooping under, 
Doth with tall mullens interlock, 

As if intent on plunder. 



Each crooked worm-laid fence one sees. 

Decayed and rotten nourishes 
A hedge of sage and locust trees 

Which like some barrier flourishes j 
And far a-field, in shadowy court. 

Before one's sight retarded, 
Loom tree-tops terraced like a fort 

By northern blasts bombarded. 



The bluff o'erhanging Massac's bed 

There is no sign revealing, '■■ 

The tangled growths that overspread, ,' 

Its dangerous edge concealing ; ;' 

Whilst leaning o'er the precipice J 

Are trees that tantalize us ; | 

A fringe of hawthorn most remiss ] 

With ripened fruit defies us. ," 

37 ^ 



Woods and Waters, 

Here music unrestrained is born 

Which, Uke a geyser, rushes 
Forth every glowing summer morn, 

From torrent-throated thrushes, 
Here flit the spangled butterflies 

Like variegated flashes, 
And honey bees whose laden thighs 

Seem bound with orange sashes. 



Each year wild thorn and jointed grass 

Here grow in rank profusion. 
With elders, briers and sassafras 

Combined for man's exclusion ; 
And fragrant vines without a name, 

Still others overriding — 
A jungle where the wily game 

Must make his daily hiding. 



Come, Rover! Keep a sharp outlook 

Among the reeds enlacing ! 
Grass six feet high conceals the brook, 

Here is the place for chasing ! 
A trail ! Ah, no ! A make-believe ! 

He jumps the tall grass over ; 
On purpose he would not deceive, 

A frolic loves young Rover ! 

38 



A Strange Hunt. 

The Collie field ! The Collie field ! 

A soil the sun shines dim on, 
With half the boughs that shade and shield 

Bent low with lush persimmon; 
A fruit, now ripened golden-red. 

By more than mankind wanted . . . 
A thousand times I've heard it said. 

The Coliie field ivas hatmtedl 



A HINT OF ILL-LUCK. 

A low cloud scuds across the sky, 

The wind is softly wailing; 
In stilly heavens I hear a sigh, 

Like some lone spirit ailing ! 
What matter ? Ever seem the scenes 

Beyond us rarer, rarer; 
Come, let us cross the twin ravines. 

The prospect may be fairer. 



A path along the margin leads 

And this we slowly follow. 
Push onward half submerged in weeds 

Past huge thorns in the hollow; 
Now come to walks that smoothly lie, 

With less of roughness springing; 
And here two posts that lean awry, 

Show where the gate was swinging. 



39 



Woods and Waters. \ 

\ 
\ 

Bare walls with rents through which one sees ' 

But ruin in many places, j 
Perched on a bluff, the tallest trees 

Below some twenty paces ; \ 

Long, long untouched of human hands, ' 

A shell, a wreck, a wonder, i 

Decaying, Collie's Cabin stands, 'i 

The Massac washing under. \ 



Each year against the crumbling wall 

The torrent beats with slaughter, 
And with each freshet portions fall 

Into the raging water. 
Whereby the whole bluff, black as lead, 

Is ever taunted, taunted . . . 
A thousand times I've heard it said, 

The Collie field was haunted ! 



O Cabin ! Shorn of every good, 

Dog-like, Oblivion hunts thee ! 
A wizard old in wildred wood, 

A perilous fate confronts thee ! 
Yet appletrees as large as oaks 

In rows about thee cluster, 
And shed, though grass thy doorway chokes, 

Upon thee lasting luster ! 

40 



A Strange Hunt. 

Perhaps, upon each sappy stem 

Their master's woes were written; 
With ligneous growths enfolding them, 

They stand unconscious-smitten. 
As through a palimpsest to read, 

It were a-kin to glory, 
To scan those writings through the screed 

Of Life's more recent story ! 

But live through ages yet to be 

And blossom every summer. 
The treasured bower of minstrelsy. 

The haunt of each new comer ; 
And while your boughs luxuriant spread, 

Triumphant in endeavor 
Grow on . . .to sorrow as unwed, 

O home-like trees . . . forever! 



AS SEEN FROM THE BLUFF. 

Where e'er you look, these autumn days. 

Here from the treetops' level. 
The festive fancy laughs and plays, 

The glad eyes feast and revel; 
Above, as touched by fairy hands. 

You see enchanted hollows. 
And burnished aisles down bottom lands. 

As far as vision follows ! 



41 



Woods and Waters. 



Thus splendor seen for many a mile, 

O'er far blue hilltops streaming; 
It must to hearts fair views beguile, 

Be more like gorgeous dreaming ; 
Far summits, decked with gleams profuse 

In lovely air expanded, 
Whereon in evening's twilight hues 

The golden clouds seem stranded. 



The bottom lands ! The bottom lands ! 

In autumn glory lying, 
Are russet-tinged with yellow bands 

And scarlet pennons flying ! 
While other hues enhance the scene, 

Some red as flaming flannel, 
And some as dark as summer green, 

Down Massac's winding channel. 



The upper hollows ! The upper hollows ! 

Bespangled flames adorning. 
Are haunts that gleam like fair Apollo's 

In Time and Poesy's morning. 
When stirred by winds they hold in bond, 

Such colors oversprinkle, 
Like some magician waved a wand 

And woods began to twinkle. 



42 



A Strange Hunt. 

The bottom lands ! The bottom lands ! 

The treetops all in motion, 
Seem like a sea of gleaming sands 

Or swiftly sparkling ocean. 
Long, leafy billows dying, dying. 

As if a lounging rover, 
The wind upon their surface lying. 

Rolls over, over, over. 



BEAUTY PERSONIFIED, 

Here Beauty seems to reign in dreams, 

And this where Heaven befriends her, 
And every day that floats away 

Some new enchantment lends her. 
As bright as truth, she broke forsooth, 

From radiant realms that bound her ; 
Yet looks so fair, she still must wear 

Their gorgeous, glories round her ! 



Her robe unlaced about the waist 

Relaxes heart and muscle, 
And everywhere in earth or air. 

You hear her garments rustle. 
She grasps the sheen, the glow serene 

With autumn gleams prevailing, 
And sweeps with smiles through forest aisles 

And leaves her colors trailing ! 



43 



Woods and Waters. 

Her gift is such her daintiest touch 

Emblazons leaf and chalice, 
And boundless woods her splendor floods 

Become an endless palace. 
And when profuse her matchless hues 

To woodlands all are given, 
Each spangled arch that spans her march 

But tells she came from heaven ! 



REVERTS TO COLLIE AND HIS FIELD. 

But where is Collie ? man of moods ! 

Of years an aggregation 
He labored, building in these woods 

His lonely habitation. 
Here dwelt and wrought where none might scan, 

Far from the rabble's laughter; 
Then disappeared, mysterious man ! 

And ne'er was heard of after. 

O ColHe field ! O Collie field ! 

I ask with grave misgiving, 
Will e'er thy secrets be revealed 

Unto a human living ? 
Was life to ColHe ere he fled, 

Always the treasure vaunted ? 
A thousand times I've heard it said, 

' ' The Collie field was haunted! " 



44 



A Strange Hunt. 



A-tree the gray owl hoots and sits, \ 

Which seems to bode disaster, J 

And many a black bat by us flits ) 

Through shadows thickening faster. \ 

But where in all the Collie grounds, •■ 

Perhaps in vain endeavor, 

Is Draco, Nero, sapient hounds, \ 

Steadfast and faithful ever? ; 



Perhaps they search yon hidden brook, 

Explore its pebbly quarters ; 
Game must abound in many a nook 

Along its sheltered waters ; 
Perhaps they climb the steeps beyond. 

Because of failure fiercer; 
Of distant ranges they are fond 

When closer game grows scarcer. 



Ah, no ! Ah, no ! They wait, they hide 

In clumps of thorn and holly. 
Forlorn in aspect, wistful-eyed 

And strangely melancholy ! 
They lag behind oppressed with dread. 

In heart and spirit daunted; 
A thousand times I've heard it said, 

" The Collie field was haunted!" 



45 



Woods and Waters. 



WITH THOUGHTS OF HOME. 

The darkness growing more intense, 

Assumes a cast nefarious ; 
It seems our chance for recompense 

Has come to be precarious ; 
The hour is late ! It now appears 

To stay here were a folly ; 
Let's strike for home ! In all these years 

There ne'er was word from Collie. 



He's gone for good ! Once more we meet 

The tree unmatched, unmated ; 
The young Papaw, said to retreat 

From clearings cultivated. 
Into the woodbine far from road, 

Far from the least endeavor 
Of labor, far from man's abode, 

To live unseen forever ! 



He's gone for good ! His house and farm 

He for all time deserted. 
Or this strange tree of changeless charm, 

Had ne'er itself perverted 
To thus take root in trodden soil. 

Its slender stem to nourish 
So nigh man's strife and farm's turmoil, 

To bring forth fruit and flourish ! 

46 



A Strange Hunt. 

Adieu, young tree ! We now depart 

And leave thee ever lonely ; 
By thee, from woods we homeward start, 

Made memorable only. 
Good luck to us, locating thee, 

Who know thy sentient story ; 
Thy first discoverers thus to be, 

For us is ample glory ! 

Adieu, old field ! Not shapes grotesque 

Declared to haunt thee ever, 
We've seen the grandly picturesque 

With Nature's wild endeavor! 
Now with thy mystery we have done; 

Here from thy highland corner 
Together we depart , , . each one . . 

Thy haunted story scorner ! 



WE LEAVE. 

How dark the night ! We cannot see 

The path that lies before us, 
And each beholds through brush and tree 

The low clouds hanging o'er us. 
We grope along the narrow verge 

Of dismal precipices. 
Where hills into broad marshlands surge 

And form superb abysses. 



47 



Woods and Waters. 

Here moss that creeps into the shade 

Beads bright in open spaces, 
And foxfire, ghost of wood decayed, 

Gleams faint in marshy places. 
A fallen tree-top looming dim, 

Each hand and face now threshes ; 
We feel our way from limb to limb, 

And scramble through its meshes. 



So still the woods our footsteps wake 

An echo far extended. 
The frail impeding bough we break 

Sounds like an oak were rended ; 
So faint the restless night-winds beat 

Amongst the lowland branches, 
The bowlders, loosened by our feet. 

Crash down like avalanches ! 



We pass on, shrinking from ourselves 

With none to help or love us ; 
And one by one dark rocky shelves 

Shed leaden hues above us. 
Now come to space each understands 

We think, secure in feeling. 
And grope along vast bottom lands. 

The dark hours by us stealing. 



A Strange Hu7it. 

In Indian-file a league we pace, 

Thus each one trailing after, 
But come to no famihar place, 

Yet push on forcing laughter. " 
Up woodland avenues we pass 

Till each with meadow clashes, 
Where fireflies swimming o'er the grass 

Shed forth their lucent flashes. 



The trees to open spaces yield — 

Whose farm we wonder, wonder; 
It is— it is the Collie field ! 

Alas ! we blunder ! blunder ! 
The Collie field ! For here's the tree, 

The young Papaw before us ; 
And now we feel in high degree, 

A strangeness stealing o'er us! 



We've circled, be it understood. 

Back to the tree that rues it ; 
Because, within the somber wood, 

The tracks of men abuse it ! 
O Tree, averse to human strife. 

That man's approach abhorrest. 
It is the ruthless law of life 

When lost within the forest ! 



49 



Woods and Waters. 

Because, with hearts against it steeled, 

With wills and words undaunted, 
We looked not on the Collie field 

As wild and story-haunted ; 
And may be that mysterious power 

Which makes it melancholy, 
That strange inheritance and dower 

Rebukes our scorn and folly ! 



Thus, lurking in the dusky air. 

Like sleep about the lotus, 
This subtle force all unaware 

With bale influence smote us ; 
And while sharp brambles pierce our skin, 

Each filled with fearful feeling 
And stirred by frantic thoughts within. 

Perceives his senses reeling ! 



As sometimes burdened with a fear. 

That which we fear befalls us ; 
Or as we sometimes deem we hear 

And heed a voice that calls us ; 
So, while the air about us gleams 

And many a charm allures us, 
The secret fear that haunts our dreams 

With mystic clasp secures us ! 



50 



A Strange Hunt. 

Thus, when some magic voice ahead 

Is deemed to be Apollo's, 
Some one of us delusion-led, 

Deceives himself and follows. 
More hope, more joy, though heaven may shriek^ 

The wild enthusiast borrows. 
And rushes onward waxing weak 

"To Sorrow's crown of sorrows!" 



Such may have Collie's fate involved, 

Such has perhaps undone us ; 
As Collie's fate remains unsolved, 

It somehow preys upon us ! 
It breeds the thoughts that most appall 

Anent his strange migration, 
We may be threatened, worst of all, 

With like annihilation ! 



I would some angel hating woe, 

Through blinding mist might view us, 
And rend the dense clouds hanging low 

And show a star unto us ! 
Ah ! Draco, wherefore yelp and whine ? 

Ah ! Nero, wherefore howling ? 
Is there some ghoul with eyes a-shine 

Amid these woodlands prowling ? 



51 



Woods and Waters. 

Why, comrades, should we thus deplore 

Our mournful situation ? 
Cheer up ! and let us try once more 

The dark woods' penetration ! 
For Draco eager, fain would lead, 

That we might travel faster; 
While Nero scares the wolves of greed 

And wards off fell disaster ! 



LOST IN THE WOODLANDS. 

Three times upon the frail Papaw, 

Though more than fain to shun it, 
Victims of Life's mysterious law, 

Three times we came upon it ! 
Three times to our abject dismay 

On the sharp elevation ; 
Three times through treetop felt our way 

With lessening consolation ! 

Three times crept down the stony shelves. 

Three times where mosses beaded ; 
Three times in bottoms found ourselves 

Through which we had proceeded ; 
Three times up woodland avenues, 

That led to open meadows 
Where fireflies spun their spiral hues. 

Like gold threads stitching shadows. 



52 



A Strange Hunt. 

We saw a thing like one who dreamed. 

But soon with rue to awe it ; 
Each time an object stranger seemed 

Than when before we saw it. 
And sore perplexed, in our despair, 

With matted boughs for cover, 
Beneath an oak in darkness there, 

We sat to talk it over. 



In all directions echoes woke 

A shrill concatenation, 
But they from wide divergence broke. 

And differed in location ; 
Thus, muddled, listening in the dark. 

And this and that declaring, 
We heard a neighbor's watch-dog bark 

And ascertained our bearing. 



In kindest words we could employ 

We gave this dog our blessing, 
And took a homeward course with joy 

We could not help expressing. 
To us, the miles began to yield. 

In jest and laughter vying; 
The pathway touched our neighbor's field 

Beyond the Massac lying. 



53 



Woods and Wafers. 



A RETROSPECTION. 



The joyous scenes ere youth has fled, 

Mid days more melancholic 
They seem again about us spread 

With all their fun and frolic ; 
The old play-ground that once we knew, 

The dear familiar places ; 
Once more the school-house comes to view 

With ball and bat and bases ! 

The games we played, the smiles bestowed, 

And looks from eyes seraphic ; 
With bright romance our faces glowed, 

With dreams our daily traffic. 
Once more the horn and gladdened hound. 

The gun and hunting parties ; 
And scenes wherein — with face embrowned — 

The country school-boy's heart is. 

O these were days before the storm ! 

O these were days we treasure ! 
O these were days the blood ran warm 

And bade us worship pleasure ! 
And looking down the aisles of time 

Where still they faintly glimmer. 
We see them as in pantomime 

Forever growing dimmer ! 



54 



A Strange Hunt. 



ON THE WAY HOMEWARD. 

Like hooded monks upon their knees, 

With bushy blackjacks teeming 
We came to grounds beneath whose trees 

Were slabs and crosses gleaming ; 
The shadows drooped forlorn and chill 

O'er vaults the storm bombarded ; 
It was the graveyard on the hill, 

A place with dread regarded ! 



Because no pathway through it led. 

Mid mounds that were a-tangle 
With wooden rails which mold o'er-spread, 

Rotting at every angle ; 
A graveyard choked with brush and sage 

Which hid the graves of many. 
So old no farmer knew its age, 

With every look uncanny ! 



We crept along with noiseless tread 

Lest each heart, newly lightened, 
Be, where our pathway nigh it led, 

By apparitions frightened ; 
When suddenly before us sprang 

Our hounds, their deep throats sounding; 
Far, far around the woodlands rang 

With echoes from them bounding ! 



55 



Woods and Waters. 

Such sounds should wake the dead, it seemed, 

When on the trail thus lavished ; 
While we with eyes that brightly beamed 

Pursued them rapture-ravished ! 
And now we hear, with hearts a-flame, 

Their wide-mouthed bays awaken, 
Which signify the frightened game 

Unto some tree has taken ! 



Through bush and brake we hastened, pale 

With fancies uncommanded ; 
At least we should not wholly fail 

And reach home empty-handed ! 
I clomb the oak by which they sate 

Until in heights forbidden, 
I saw the game, with heart elate. 

Among the branches hidden ! 



" I see it, boys ! " with frantic glee ' 

I screamed a moment after; 

And looking up they answered me \ 

With lusty shout and laughter ! \ 

I gave the bough a vigorous shake • 

Unto the game appalling, 3 
Which downward dropped with fear a-quake 

And parted branches falling ! | 

56 ; 



A Strange Hunt. 



It struck the bare ground with a thud, 

But just as every one cheered, 
The frantic hounds, so hot of blood. 

Seemed mystified and conjured ! 
For though each sprang with nimble ease 

That stood expectant near it, 
Whate'er it was they strove to seize 

Had vanished like a spirit ! 



Amid-stream as an oarsman dazed 

Where mist obscures the landing, 
I scrambled downward half amazed. 

My comrades silent standing ! 
Unsolved, my spirit o'er it dreams 

Through life's forlorn endeavor. 
And still to-day that mystery seems 

To me as strange as ever ! 



57 



IN THE GLOOM. 

ALAS ! she dwells apart, 
Nor yet is dead ! — 
Lost in the ruthless mart, 
Dear friend, who led ; 
And from my mournful heart 
The spring has fled ! 

The glad, the glorious spring 
That flushed its bowers ; 

Made them with music ring. 
And sweet with flowers, 

And bright with flashing wing. 
Those happy hours ! 

O Love ! beneath the skies 
Where summer gleams. 

Upon my tear-dimmed eyes 
A glory beams ; 

Thy friendship's paradise 
Was one of dreams ! 

Each did on high expand 

Its colors rare, 
And Fancy's golden band 

Was rainbowed there ; 
So gleamed that Eden-land, 

And life was fair ! 



58 



In the Gloom. 

Before us heights sublime, 

And fields serene ; 
No solemn peal or chime 

Has changed the scene ; 
But Traffic's smoke and grime 

Now loom between ! 

Thou, more than half divine, 

In friendship fond, 
Come with those eyes of thine 

Like orbs beyond; 
Break forth, O Love of mine. 

From Traffic's bond ! 

Thou canst but be the same ; 

No stain can lie 
Upon thy joyous name; 

Come, and my sky 
Again shall glow with flame. 

And woe pass by ! 



59 



MY LADY'S HAND. 

A LADY'S hand aroused my thought, 
When I was young and bold ; 
'Twas one that Hart, the sculptor, wrought 
Of marble white and cold. 



It may be, stirred by dream ideal, 
When Hfe was new to him, 

Long patient o'er the charming real, 
He shaped that faultless gem. 



Some Bluegrass Belle with golden hair. 
Perhaps, in whose command. 

When welcomed to her mansion fair, 
He found that model hand. 



But I was young, and while I prized 

The skill it did denote, 
I had a sweetheart . . . idolized . . 

A so I sat and wrote : 



I know a hand superbly fit. 

In art's superior class, 
Hart's hand, with grace so exquisite. 

Might equal, not surpass. 

60 



My Ladys Hand, 

For oft I feel at early morn, 
A clasp that doth inspire; 

One that revives me when forlorn, 
And sets my blood on fire. 

And I exultant, striving much, 

My lady's dainty hand 
Set forth, if not with classic touch, 

In words you understand. 



Such magic warmth it doth embalm, 
Such strength its blue veins hold, 

A rose-bud pressed within its palm 
Would all its leaves unfold. 



And further still, I boldly say, 
Such rare blood nourisheth 

From the fond heart that pines away, 
Its touch would ward off death ! 



Sweet odors up among the birds 
Would from that rose-bud blow ; 

And as reward, what grateful words 
Aye from that heart would flow ? 



6i 



MY HEART. 

MY heart is like the lonely shell 
That trembles on the beach, 
Within when e'er its billows swell 
The ocean's reach. 

The dawn hath kissed with rose its lips, 

And they no grief should know ; 
Yet from the mournful tide it dips 
Some kindred woe. 



And though the tide dies down again, 

Caught from its sombre stave, 
The shell still breathes a mystic strain — 
One with the wave. 



So this poor shell-like heart of mine 

Echoes a kindred mite. 
Caught from the realms of song divine 
And infinite ! 



The tides that stir within my soul, 4 

Swell upward wild and strong, u 

Unfathomed through my spirit roll | 

Such floods of song ! | 

62 1 



My Heart. 



I cry aloud for fitting speech 

That through me earth may hear, 
My glad heart, vaguely in their reach, 
Feels Heaven is near ! 



But on my lips their music dies, 
Too great the rapture given ; 
God suffers few to pierce the skies 
And leap in Heaven ! 



And so, though like the voice of June 

My soul glad anthems fill, 
My heart at length must tire and swoon 
Of longing still ! 



And I, though stirred by passion strong. 

But for this feeble strain, 
Stand looking towards the skies of song. 
In vain ! in vain ! 



Yet, mourn on touched with grief sublime, 

O heart, for joys that flee ! 
Still breathe unheard thy lowly rhyme 
One with the sea ! 



63 



Woods and Waters. 



Mourn on ! For soon the glowing skies 

Shall break their seals of blue, 

When like a lark my soul will rise 

And flutter through ! 



No more then in that golden noon 

Of song and sorrow's mighty 
No more my heart will tire and swoon, 
No more of night ! 



64 



HERS. 

SHE doubts and disbelieves 
And says with honeyed phrases, 
My loving heart deceives 
When e'er it sings her praises. 

But by the breath that stirs 

The murmurous woods in summer, 
My heart is wholly hers 

Till death shall take it from her ! 



Aye, by the God above 

In mortal chains who bound me, 
But left me hope and love 

And woman's arm around me. 



'Tis hers — and hers alone — 
With all its high endeavor, 

A kingdom and a throne 
And she its queen forever ! 

A crown her brows above, 

May fadeless bays enwreath her, 

Embalmed within my love 
Like soft and fragrant ether; 



65 



Woods and Waters. 

Hers waxing like a fire, 

The secret flame that warms her; 
Lord, help my soul's desire 

To yield what joys and charms her,. 

Till Earth shall gladly seem 
Some vast enchanted station, 

And Life an endless dream 
Or luscious incantation ! 



Though Creeds that cleave apart 
Let separate graves enfold us. 

Forever heart to heart 

The bonds of Nature hold us. 



Not one who breathes and feels 
Can help this wisdom seeing. 

Though none may break the seals 
And fathom soul and being ; 



For heights of joy and mirth 
Yon skies are still concealing. 

While Hate's abyss on earth 
Engulfs the depths of feeling. 



66 



AT HAND. 

THOUGH long delayed with its clouds of white, 
With its warm sunshine and breezes bland, 
In its wonted splendor, with music and might, 

The ever-joyous Spring is at hand. 
Awaking the flowers to life and light 
Over all the beautiful, brightening land ! 



Their glossy colors the trees have donned, j 

The rill through grass like a ribbon slips ; i 

A green enlacement doth fringe the pond, I 

And in the bower where the honey-bee sips i 

The glad earth lifts like a slenderous wand | 

The nectared bloom to his golden lips ! i 



Behold the orchard ! Profuse and bright, 
As clean and spotless as driven snow, 

The apple trees stand, a vision of white. 
In their stainless blossom, row on row. 

In the sunhght flashing, a glorious sight. 
Divine and immaculate in its glow ! 



67 



Woods and Waters. 



The flash of cloud and the rainbow's gleam 
The air above with their radiance flood ; 

There's new-born splendor in pool and stream, 
And a feast of gladness in field and wood; 

And Earth, enlivened by love's sweet dream, 
Declares with ecstasy God is good ! 



Alas ! alas ! with the blessings gained 

I too would be happy, but I feel 
A longing for losses I have sustained ! 

Old thoughts of bereavement through me steal, 
And still my heart, though subdued and pained, 

Doth cherish a wound it would not heal ! 



My beautiful boys, among my girls 

Whose tresses dense but shadows ensnare 

When the wind about them plays and whirls. 
Stood fairy-like with their yellow hair ! 

The sunlight fell on their golden curls 

And among them nestling seemed more fair I 



68 



At Hand. 



The best beloved of my household band, 
Two little lords I was wont to greet, 

With their fair young faces smiling and bland, 
With the pit-a-pat of their pink-toed feet. 

And their eyes of frankness, so large and grand,. 
Are seen no more in the house or street ! 



No voice so laden with exquisite powers 
To their mother and me now answereth, 

Nor sweetest whispers amongst the flowers ; 
Their kisses given ere claimed by Death, 

The air they breathed on these lips of ours. 
More fragrant seemed than the rose's breath I 



But while life's stream, like a stagnant brook, 
With the dregs of sorrow refused to run. 

On the steep hillside, in a grassy nook, 

We laid them, lisping " God's will be done 

And the spot becomes when we on it look, 
Most sacred of any under the sun ! 



69 



TREES AND BIRDS. 

THE trees in Barlow valley 
Are high, so high, 
Along each emerald alley 
Aloft they sway and dally 
And sweep the sky. 



With wind among them sighing, 

Their tops expand, 
And altitudinous vying, 
The white clouds o'er thern flying 

Seem heavenward fanned. 



Always within their center 

A summer wood ; 
For cane that knows no winter, 
From June a riven splinter. 

Among them stood. 



A frail aerial leader, 

Of graceful mein ; 
Yet an excessive breeder, 
And like the glorious cedar. 
Is always green. 

70 



Trees and Birds, 



Papaws, as if forbidden 
To plant their root 
By side the roadways ridden, 
Therein securely hidden, 
Bore luscious fruit. 



In swamps the cypress flowered 

With numerous knees ; 
And there, superbly dowered, 
The giant poplar towered 
A king of trees ! 



And there ere breezes dally, 

Or waters flash, 
Where later blossoms rally, 
Hangs o'er the woodland valley 



green mirage 



The soil a bounteous giver, 

With mingling hoods 
The countless trees a-quiver 
For leagues along the river 
Made murmurous woods. 



Woods and Waters. 



The breeze, a lazy lover, 

A lounger, too. 
Soft on their leafy cover 
Rolled slowly over, over. 

Scarce falling through. 



The zephyr wallowed, wallowed, 

On foliage dense, 
By green mouths swallowed, swallowed, 
As each that followed, followed. 

In indolence ! 



With these the gentler portion 

That stirred their aisles. 
There swelled a wide green ocean 
Of naught but trees in motion 
For miles and miles 1 



But storm among their branches ! 

It made them shriek 
And shout like wild Comanches, 
Or groan like avalanches 

From Jura's peak ! 



72 



Trees and Birds. 



I was up-reared among them, 
And roamed them free ; 
Moans when tornadoes wrung them, 
And dirges north winds sung them. 
Roared hke the sea ! 



The sudden storm descending 

With angry cloud, 
I oft saw young trees bending 
About, their tops extending, 
Waihng aloud ! 



Saw oaks in desperation 

That late were grave. 
As daft with consternation, 
With quick gesticulation 
Their branches wave — 



Their summits wildly shaking 

With moans severe. 
Their huge boles trembling, breaking, 
Like frightened giants quaking 

As crazed with fear ! 



Woods and Waters. 



A youth, perhaps in error, 

Half courting harm. 
My heart, till skies were clearer, 
Would beat with joyful terror 
And pleased alarm — 



The wind about me wailing, 

Without delay 
Before the gales assailing, 
I strove with boyish failing 

To fly away — 



While dreams within me thronging 

Took grandeur's form, 
Myself and parents wronging, 
I fain would plunge me, longing, 
Into the storm ! 



Then as from all else riven. 

To feel at last 
A human atom given 
To boundless space and driven 

Before the blast ! 



74 



Trees and Birds. 



Perhaps each new sensation, 

Ere I could sing, 
Helped give with approbation 
My young imagination 

Its early wing. 



A cloud in beauty straying 

Along the sky, 
Would lure me forth from playing. 
As would the graceful swaying 

Of tree-tops high. 



For I was reared beside you 'i 

And as a child, ^ 

O wildwoods, ne'er denied you, .■ 

But did my dreams confide you \ 

In spaces wild ! \ 



Have played and romped among you, 

When bright with flowers, 
Which, with gay matins sung you. 
Each year the glad spring flung you, 
In fragrant showers. 



75 



Woods and Waters. 



Your boughs for roof and rafter, 

Traced many a stream 
With joy before and after, 
When life was love and laughter, 
And death a dream ! 



Have found the city bitter 

For songful moods ; 

I feel your groves were fitter, 

And long for gladsome twitter 

Of paveless woods ! 



I fain would plunge into you 

As yours again ; 
Would scramble, ramble through you, 
And breathe the airs that woo you, 

O woodland main ! 



Have you as balmy fixer 

Of galling pain; 
Rock on your surf a mixer, 
And get your sap-elixir 
Into each vein ! 



76 I 



Trees and Birds. '\ 

\ 

I 



Birds I have fondly noted ; 

Alike I prized 
The harsh or mellow-throated ; 
Not one in woodlands floated 

That I despised. 



The blue-jay, bright and sprightly, 

And dashed with white. 
High-crested, flying lightly. 
In conduct somewhat knightly, 
And full of fight. 



Some men in good position 

Come forth to say : 
'* This bird, without contrition, 
Goes on an evil mission 
One certain day." 



"This bird, a noisy being. 

Defiant mein. 
Voiced harsh and disagreeing, 
On Fridays tee-ing, tee-ing, 

Is seldom seen." 

77 



Woods and Waters. 



These men with heads unlevel 

In chorus say : 
"This bird in secret revel 
With dry straw serves the devil 

That luckless day ! " 



He from the truth must wander 

Who illy speaks ; 
This bird, which thus they slander,. 
Is brave as Alexander 

Who led the Greeks ! 



I've seen him upward sally 

With curbless flight 
And war in space aerially 
With fierce assault and rally 
Without afright ! 



And while his wings are nimble,. '\ 

The Eagle's scream, 'i 

At which his neighbors tremble, ■ ,j 

But makes — lest he dissemble — ''^ 

His keen eyes gleam ! ■' 

78 J 



Trees and Birds. 



Again his comrades flutter 

With cries of pain, 
They o'er some reptile utter, 
Like dervishes that mutter, 
A harsh refrain ! 



O blue-jay, semi-crested. 
Half king of birds ! 
From you by those detested 
There is no glory wrested, 

Though harsh their words ! 



From this high perch some move you 

With cold disdain. 
But myriads, myriads love you, 
And all the heavens above you 

Are your domain ! 



BLACK BIRDS. 

Black birds are coated various, 

Some splashed with red, 
Some yellow, half gregarious, 
Clear-eyed, superb, hilarious — 
To music wed. 



79 



Woods and Waters. 



Their songs are seldom other 

Than single strains 
That well from one another, 
And purl and blend together 
In soft refrains. 



Comes naught of melancholy 
From their fresh throats ; 
If all excess were folly, 
Some mingles with their jolly 
Unstinted notes. 



One hears a mellowed hushing, 

A cadence rare ; 
Then a spontaneous gushing 
Crescendo, upward rushing, 

Floods all the air ! 



Though March be scarce declining, 

Their notes serene 
In song thus joyously twining. 
Seem blent with dew-drops shining 

On leaves of green. 



80 



Trees and Birds, 



Yet, while chill winds are straying 

Through woody dell, 
These birds, their bent obeying. 
In leafless tree-tops swaying, 

Their matins swell. 



Upon these songful lovers 

One steals in vain ; 
Some prescience o'er them hovers, 
Approaching, man discovers 

Their quick disdain. 



You meet my approbation, 

birds sincere ! 
Sing on from elevation 
Just where in isolation 

1 see and hear ! 



THE YELLOW-HAMMER. 

O dappled yellow-hammer, 

I love you well ! 
For, though you only stammer, 
You are no paltry shammer 

Or feathered swell ! 



8i 



Woods and Waters. 



You carve out excavations 

In old dead trees, 
Within whose cozy stations 
With wife and young relations 

You dwell at ease. 



There where fresh airs regale you^ 

Your country-seat ; 
It is, whatever fail you. 
If vicious foes assail you, 

A safe retreat. 



What though the blithe woodpecker 
Your home may haunt ? 

O gentle dominecker, 

He is no family wrecker, 
Or gay romaunt ! 



THE WOODPECKER. 

In field or broad savannah 

To peace he's wed; 
Though, like a red bandanna, 
God wraps a crimson banner 
About his head. 



82 



Trees and Birds. 



He spends his morning leisure 

On bough above, 
Or drills for wormy treasure, 
And drums for simple pleasure. 

If not for love. 



I had within the city j 

A dwelling bounded \ 

By woodlands green and pretty, l. 

Space which it was a pity 

High walls surrounded. '\ 



Into a dead bough celling 

That seemed to please, 
This bird, though strange the telling, 
Came forth and carved a dwelling 
Among my trees. 



From where soft-footed rabbits 

Sought their shy mates. 
From plenty came to spare-bits 
With all his country habits 
And social traits. 

83 



Woods and Waters. 



There drumming late and early, 

His querulous note 
Spread forth before me clearly, 
The fields I loved so dearly 

In days remote. 



A flag o'er tall trees flowering 

Did wave aloof 
'Mid woods the house embowering, 
From staff of iron towering 

Up from the roof. 



This bird, though queer the notion, 

Seemed glad to come 
And choose the iron portion, 
And there with rapid motion 

To sit and drum. 



To me this showed liim loving 

The sound alone ; 
He drummed for hours unmoving, 
The whole house for him proving 

An aerophone ! 



84 



Trees and Birds. 



O bird, with hands a-clapping,^, 

I welcomed you 
Despite your constant rapping ! 
The flag above you flapping 

Waved welcome too ! 



THE RAIN CROW. 

rain crow flying, flying, 

From spot to spot ! 

1 hear your prophesying, 

I hear your constant crying. 
But see you not ! 



You haunt the summer brooklet 

Where tree-cones rise. 
Concealed in woody nooklet. 
In shady bend or crooklet. 
From human eyes. 



Your form some oak embraces^. 

Again, again, 
I search where foliage laces, 
I scan all leafy places, 

In vain, in vain. 



Woods and Waters. 



Like some migrating swallow, 

You chatter out ; 
Your voice I cannot follow, 
So echoes through the hollow 

And flits about ! 



At length in volume gaining. 

It seems to me, 
With mimic sounds profaning, 
A rain crow's loud complaining 

In every tree ! 



Each unto tremors bobbing 
Which through it run. 
Its woody pulses throbbing, 
With all the forest sobbing 
In unison ! 



I, like the trees, revere you. 

And halfway fear; 
I come so close, so near you, 
I hear you, hear you, hear you, 

But only hear ! 

86 



Trees and Birds. 



bird, do you dissemble, 

Or seem to be ? 
Are you so fleet, so nimble, 

1 see the leaves a-tremble, 

Yet only see ! 



Whether a voice that wanders. 

As cast away; 
Or sound some spirit squanders. 
My soul the mystery ponders 

From day to day ! 



THE TURTLE DOVE. 

Some voice the barnyard zoning 

Soft as of love. 
And as o'er ruins moaning, 
'Tis yours some sorrow owning, 

O weeping dove ! 



I would not basely lower you 

By any chance, 
For standing here before you, 
I see the mantle o'er you, 

Of old romance ! 

87 



Woods and Waters. 



Nor would I stir contention, 

Nor deem it true, 
By man's profuse invention 
In Holy Writ a mention 
Is made of you ! 



In past eonic ages. 

Again, again. 
Your kind in sacred pages 
And in profane, engages 

The praise of men. 



A nest of woven masses 

Should be your guild's, 
Of soft hair that surpasses 
The cone in stubble grasses 
The partridge builds. 



Yet, this exposed on fences, 
Though shaped with zest. 

The days when love commences. 

With joy to thrill your senses, 
Is not a nest ! 



88 



Trees and Birds, 



No sign of down or feather, 

Sticks loosely flung 
In circling form together, 
Here careless of the weather 
You rear your young ! 



Yet, though by Nature driven 

This phase to show ; 
For offspring from you riven, 
One compensation given. 
Is fast they grow ! 



You are of holiest savor; 

In Palestine 
You met with heavenly favor. 
Which serves to make you graver 

And more divine. 



About you, patient lover, 

Illumined-eyed 
Could mortal vision hover, 
Revealed, I might discover 

A beauty wide ! 

89 



Woods and Waters. 



In Nature living slowly, 

In virtue true, 
You are a symbol holy, 
Type of the meek and lowly 

And faithful too ! 



For you, through life's endeavor, 

'Through tribe's increase. 
Like Eagles, parting never, 
Dwell with your choice forever 
In loving peace ! 



Sweet bird, man is your debtor ! 

Though brief his span 
Oft marriage-bond doth fetter ; 
You are more true and better 

Than many a man ! 



And yet with some obliqueness. 

If not a sin, 
In all your blessed meekness, 
One sees a little weakness 

Ooze out again. 

90 



Trees and Birds, 



Your gentle life pursuing, 

O weeping dove, 
Poured forth in tones subduing. 
There seems too much of wooing ! 

Too much of love ! 



IN DEEPER WOODS. 

Yet many a voice that wrangles, 

And wing unfurled. 
Like bell that only jangles 
Dwells in your deeper tangles, 
O woodland world ! 



There your opossums hobble, 

Your squirrels bark. 
Wild turkeys yelp and gobble ; 
I've heard your raccoons squabble 

Harsh through the dark ! 



With head uphfted seeing. 
With graceful bounds, 
To me most disagreeing, 
I saw a red fox fleeing 

From bellowing hounds ! 



Woods and Waters, 



He sprang with easeful motion 

As strong of breath, 
But with the instinctive notion. 
That to be caught his portion 
Was surely death ! 



Oft he displayed his cunning 

When on his track 
Far through the forest running, 
The loud pursuers shunning, 

He doubled back. 



Urged on by heartless master 

With pleasures grim, 
They crowded on him faster, 
Till all was dire disaster 
And death to him ! 



Still larger game abounded ; 

With frantic breath, 
I saw while baying sounded, 
A fleet young deer surrounded 

And shot to death ! 



92 



Trees and Birds. 



But not for me such slaughter ! 

In their defense 
My shy soul — if one caught her, 
Claimed kinship — half a daughter 

Of woodlands dense ! 



I let no trammels hamper, 
It meets my frown 

And o'er me casts a damper; 

I'd rather see game scamper 
Than shoot it down. 



Sometimes for beauty hunting 

I used to stand 
And half believe, confronting 
So much emblazoned bunting. 

It fairyland ! 



There came from mosses olden 

The trumpet's blare. 
And colors gleaming golden, 
And colors that embolden. 
Were waving there ! 

93 



Woods and Waters. 



Though some looked pale and haunted^ 

Yet somewhere nigh 
The red and blue undaunted, 
Like flags the fairest flaunted, 

Were hung on high ! 



Thus were the woods attired 

In sheen profuse, 
And there were trees admired 
When first my heart aspired 

To woo the Muse ! 



O trees, some old and hoary. 

Yet green and grand ! 
You have renowned in story 
Few peers in woodland glory 
Of any land! 



I dream of being under 

Your boughs a-blow, 
And in my dream I wonder 
If man who cleaves asunder 
Has laid you low ! 

94 



Trees and Birds. 



Though hopes of wealth besiege us, 

Only a clown 
With greed and grit egregious, 
And actions sacrilegious 

Could hew you down ! 



\ 
That death is still its wages \ 

Is true of sin ; \ 

Yet this, and like outrages, 
Trade's edict down the ages 

Demands of men ! ! 



95 



SISTER DOLOROSA. 

O DOLOROSA, like to one 
Who would from gaiety flee ! 
Sweet Dolorosa, if a nun, 

Could you more pious be ? 
For while your gentle spirit grieves. 

You wear a timid look, 
Like the young fawn amid green leaves 
That haunts the summer brook ! 



Your eyes of hazel do no harm, ^ 

Nor does your hair of brown ; i 

Such eyes are woman's chiefest charm, I 

Such hair is woman's crown, \ 

O Dolorosa, wherefore pour i* 

Upon them ceaseless tears ? ] 

Sweet Dolorosa, weep no more, 'i 

Like these each charm endears ! j 



96 



Sister Dolorosa. 



Yet, laughter sometimes from you steals, 

A fresh melodious note, 
And sometimes bursts in merry peals 

And bubbles through your throat. 
Ah then, as if with joy endowed, 

A light your face embowers, 
Like sunshine clasping up the cloud 

That melts in April showers ! 



But while with tears still unrestrained 

You cast your looks above. 
Who would have thought you entertained 

A dream of wedded love ? 
Yet go, dear girl, where duty calls, 

And life's true mission fill ; 
Here is a heart, whate'er befalls. 

Which you may turn to still ! 



97 



MY LADY'S SLEEVES. 

OLADY fair, these summer noons, 
With look and thought beguiling,. 
Between two miniature balloons 
I see you smiling, smiling. 

Your new dress glows with lusters soft 
Which make me dearly love you, 

But as they fain would soar aloft, 
Your huge sleeves mount above you ! 

I held them long a comic turn 

Of Fashion's queer abuses ; 
Not until now did I discern 

Their airy fairy uses ! 

Your sleeves, your elephantine sleeves. 
You house your secret laughs in; 

Each quivering like to aspen leaves, 
Lets slip the vocal drafts in ! 



98 



My Ladys Sleeves. 



With dainty pantomimic shout, 
Their eyes like burning tapers, 

Therein they froHc all about, 
And cut their merry capers. 



Since you my idolized have been, 
Their count I can not reckon ; 

But just before they enter in, 
To me they cutely beckon. 

As if within each cone expands 

A paradise of bhsses, 
I see them clap their little hands 

And proffer me their kisses. 

They come like thrush songs that entrance,. 

Poured forth among the stubble ; 
And though you coldly look askance, 

Up through your throat they bubble. 



Woods and Waters. 



Unto them cling, though you assume 
A silent, grave demeanor, 

The odors of the opening bloom 
And grasses growing greener. 



And I beside life's summer stream 
Sojourning long and lonely, 

For peace and happiness supreme 
Ask you for one thing only : 



Among their joyance, though you mask 
The alluring laughs that start in. 

In love's sweet sunshine while you bask, 
O lady, put my heart in ! 



HOME OF MY HEART. j 

NOT here in the land Greed debases, ■] 

Where the weaker go down in the fight; '\ 
In the war for the spoils of high-places, 

Go down into wrong with the right, < 
Overcome by the might of the strong 

In the rush of the merciless throng ! ' 

But down in the land of true glory, 

The land said to lie in a trance, i 

Enrobed in the glamor of story, < 

In the kingdom of olden romance ! 
Down there is the home of my heart. 
Remote from the work-a-day mart ! 

Down there at the base of a mountain, I 

By a rivulet seeking the sea. 
Which springs from the mystical fountain 

In mythical lore said to be 
On the crest of Aonai! who knows? 
Down there where the amaranth blows ! ] 



For my soul of the Muse is a lover, 

Of loyalist lovers and young; 
Of her and the soft skies above her, 

Whose clouds are like blossoms up-hung; 
Of the sweet-scented vales where she roves, 
And the charm and the rune of her groves t 



MY FIRST TEACHER. 

I HEAR a sudden clatter, 
And know by noisy shout, 
And many feet that patter. 

The city-school is out. 
I hear the children prattle, 

And on their teachers call, 
As they begin the battle 



That surely comes to all. i 

A thought arrests and drafts me | 

And clasps me where I stand, | 

And backward Fancy wafts me '\ 

To youth's enchanted land; 1 
Where under leafy thatches 

I marched into the wood, j 

Among the hazel patches ) 

Wherein the school-house stood. ■ 



About my teachers thronging 

Are memories fading dim, 
The soul within me longing, 

I call aloud for them ! 
But Time, the necromancer, 

Has conjured them away; 
My calls they do not answer. 

My teachers ! where are they ? 



My First Teacher. 

A preacher's buxom daughter, 

With hair of golden glow, 
By Massac's limpid water, 

First taught me long ago. 
She was a woman jolly, 

Coquettish, cultured, smart; 
And free from melancholy 

Her young and happy heart. 



With mein of high-born lady, 

With archness in her looks. 
From play-grounds cool and shady, 

She bade us come to books. 
The youths into their places 

With haste and bluster rushed. 
Their fresh and eager faces 

With new excitement flushed. 



In acts of composition 

She our young minds to dower. 
Each day without contrition. 

Indulged us half an hour ; 
And thus, this noble woman, 

Long blessed be her name, 
Showed patience more than human 

To hear us read the same ! 

103 



Woods and Waters. 



I look forth from the casement 

On steep and sloping lands, 
O'er which a green enlacement 

Like emerald fringe expands ; 
Along whose margins streaming 

Or spread in flats below, 
I see bright waters gleaming 

From Massac's overflow. 



From bottoms far before us 

Oft comes a jar of notes, 
A vast amphibian chorus 

That swells from rasping throats \. 
And while I hear the splashing 

Of watery pools and springs, 
Among the tree-tops flashing 

I see emblazoned wings. 



Each tree that poses dreamlike. 

Now, breeze-awakened stands ; 
They lean and sway and seem like 

Engaged in shaking hands; 
While skies with light clouds pendent 

High o'er the forest-wall. 
With blue the most resplendent, 

Are arching over all. 



My First Teacher. 



I gazed with raptured feeling 

Long on the sylvan scene, 
So beauteous and appealing 

Appeared the country-green. 
Up rose fair hopes enchanting 

My senses for the time \ 
I found my young heart panting 

To breathe a thought in rhyme. 



With instinct as a leader, 

Although of tender age, 
I had searched my little reader 

For each poetic page ; 
And no offense committing, 

I thought the page of rhyme 
Or poesy more befitting, 

Possessed of pleasing chime. 



So under this condition. 

For better or for worse, 
I wrote my composition 

In simple, childlike verse ; 
And when I stood before her 

And read my poem there, 
A roseate blush flushed o'er her 

That made her twice as fair. 

105 



Woods and Waters. 



"Come here! " she said excited, 

' ' Come here ! I give you this ! 
Pressed on my lips dehghted, 

A woman's fervent kiss ! 
Her love the more to show it, 

She added, bless her heart, 
" You are my little poet, 

I claim you from the start ! " 



"The Muse's newest jewel, 

Sing out and make a name I 
The world is cold and cruel, 

But warms to love and fame! 
If words like mine embolden 

Or urge to noble deed, 
Go win opinions golden 

Of all who haply read ! " 



Time sweeps me onward ever, 

Far from the joyous scene. 
Yet I through life's endeavor, 

Where blessings intervene, 
Have met with nothing better 

Than these kind words of hers 
Nor shall my heart forget her 

While life-blood in me stirs. 

1 06 



My First Teacher. 



My secret thoughts disclosing, 

As then it still is true, 
O Roxie, when composing, 

My mind reverts to you ! 
Still I strive energetic, 

And have much pain withstood, 
To make your words prophetic 

And prove your judgment good ! 



107 



KATY-DID RONDELS. 



(On reading Mrs. J. I. McKinney's poems in the newspapers signed 
Katy-did.) 



O KATY-DID, thy nom-de-plume 
Suggests a sylvan palace hid 
Where flossy fancies blow and bloom, 
O Katy-did ! 

Thy dreams, its fairy scenes amid, 

Do beauteous form and face assume 
And look through real lash and lid : 

En-clad from some aerial loom 

Whose woof mysterious shuttles thrid 
With soft-spun strays of light and gloom, 
O Katy-did! 



io8 



Katy-did Rondels. 



On flashing wings the silence feels, 

Each thought new-born ideally springs, 
And close about one's vision wheels 
On flashing wings j 

Bright words to which some new light clings 

That flutter through fresh-broken seals 
From out thy fairy imaginings ; 

Like birds no more the blossom shields, 

Whose equipoise mid ruby rings 
The sheen of dainty plumes reveals 
On flashing wings ! 



Scarce sweeter song amongst the flowers 

Doth any throat for joy prolong; 
And Art on Love's ethereal towers, 
Scarce sweeter song ! 

Its April chimes are clear and strong. 

And patter down with healing powers 
On bosoms scathed by sin and wrong. 

The daintiest bird in summer bowers 

That sings where sheltering shadows throng 
Pours forth upon the charmed hours 
Scarce sweeter song ! 



109 



IN THE AIR. 

WHO is it singing, maid or lover. 
Waifs of a song so near ? 
Form of no human can I discover, 

Whose is the voice I hear 
Sudden as laughter, as clear and strong, 
Bantering the birds for a burst of song ? 

Is it some Sprite of the water-fall — 

Spirit the warm wind frees — 
Ranging the bounds of the forest wall, 

Joying among the trees, 
Under concealment of reed and vine, 
Charming the dwellers of oak and pine ? 

Is it a Peri — some fair out-cast — 

Mantled with pink and gold. 
Veiled in yon cloudlet just floated past. 

Filling with memories old, 
Chanting as idly the air-ship strays, 
Gladsome refrains of her Eden-days ? 

APRIL it is ! As the soft air clears, 

Sweet is the joy of her 
Tripping as wont down the columned years 

Setting Earth's heart a-stir, 
Making the sky and woodlands ring 
Filled with the praises of God and Spring ! 



/ 
/ 



STRAYED. 

THY keel has touched the haunted shore that lies 
Beyond the sweep of all but museful eyes, 
And shining through thy verse are golden gleams 
Of skies that arch the lovely land of dreams; 
And yet thy keel, with all its fairy range 
About Song's reedy isles, thou dost exchange 
For horse and phaeton, O fair poet, strayed — 
Though in unsullied garments long arrayed ! 

I envy him the glory of his ride, 
Who lured thee from thy keel and seas so wide ! 
And though his gray head bears the rime of age, 
Against him I could ceaseless warfare wage ; 
Sayest thou I ought not? Let me then condemn 
In kindly words thy erring jaunt with him ; 
Or shall I deem, the traitorous action done, 
My heart's own heroine was not wholly won ? 

Alas ! how like an old-time Troubadour 
Who wandered forth, in love with dusky Moor, 
And sang the burden of his bosom's pain 
With lyre in hand, as though he loved in vain. 
Have I in tears mid alien listeners stood. 
And winning fast opinions golden-good. 
Thy worthy praises hymned to plaudits wild ? 
Or turned, arousing passions undefiled, 
To hopeless love the theme that most endears. 
And wooing sorrow sung to ravished ears ? 



Woods and Waters. 



Such sweet response at times stole forth from thee, 

Thy very accents, half bewildering me, 

With poesy rife, fell on my tranced ear, 

Like words of some fair spirit dreamed of here ! 

In them did dwell a tahsmanic power 

Whose wondrous touch, like dewdrop on a flower, 

Pellucid fancies o'er my senses threw; 

And when I called to pay thee homage due, 

I crossed thy threshhold, saw thy room expand, 

And stood before thee as in Fairyland ! 

A world of wealth for goodly ease ordained, 
Or realm enchanted where some goddess reigned; 
And this — wherein the richest jewels gleamed — 
And this, thy room, her splendid palace seemed; 
From chandehers did mellow radiance pour. 
And gorgeous carpets flamed along the floor ; 
In carven niches tiny statues posed, 
And damask curtains o'er each window closed; 
Rare were the paintings that adorned the wall, 
And golden glamors blossomed over all ! 

Such was the charm that when I turned away, 
Some secret shell within my bosom lay ; 
For in my breast when from thy presence gone, 
I heard a sound that trembled on and on ! 
Or whence arose the sweet continuous din ? 
My tongue spun not this strangest air within ; 
Nor through my shut lips came the charmed note, 
Nor from my heart, for that was in my throat ! 



Strayed. 



Since thus embued with Music's phantom tone, 
What wonder that its sound doth tremble on ? 
Blown softly down the azure aisles of Time, 
Like some melodious and unbroken chime ? 

Or that my soul to passion's cureless wound, 
Thrill like a lute whose strings incessant sound! 
Or harp aeolian, one sweet sighs have strung. 
Within Love's holy temple high up-hung ? 
Or that I sang until with vast delight, 
I saw thee, beauteous and inspiring sight, 
In minds of others caught up as their theme. 
Forth-imaged shining like a golden dream ? 

In fair Provence or sunny clime of France, 
Where Music first eclipsed the flashing lance. 
Since Heloise loved in shadowed days and dimmed, 
Has Woman heard her praise more nobly hymned ? 
In dells where first the shy young Muses roved. 
The sacred soil by minstrels still beloved ; 
In classic groves in far-off" famous lands. 
Where sentient strings were twanged by master hands. 
What ardent poet, since Tasso wooed in vain, 
Has sung for love a more heroic strain ? 

Dwells there a Knight in that romantic land, 
Which curbs and holds the turbid Rio Grande, 
Whose daring storms the soul with fiery shower, 
May cope with him who courts the Muse's power? 



"3 



Woods and Waters. 



On Honor's field, no matter whose the gain, 
Drenched with the blood of fearless heroes slain, 
Since first the morning stars together sang, 
From northern shores whence bold barbarians sprang, 
To green plateaux where fairest flowers unfold. 
In southern seas and lands of sun and gold. 
For any maid whose heart e'er valor won. 
What worthier deed in all the world was done ? 



In Love's foray or battle's deadlier shock, 
Though envious hps his songful prowess mock, 
Wherever found in all enlightened lands, 
In war cut down or slain by murderous hands. 
The poet's fame mid Music's heavenly chimes, 
Song-nourished, lives and thrives in after times! 
For still the gods rejoice when he is born. 
And him endow with conquering love and scorn ;. 
Hence he from force beyond our human ken, 
Receives from birth a matchless strength within ; 
And since the day his word aroused the Greeks, 
A deathless god-head in him breathes and speaks 1 

Then do I, though I stir the human throng. 
And numbers sweet with pathos still prolong, 
Through reed and pipe that seem to share my pain, 
But vainly pour my soul's sequestered strain ? 
Ah, no! No more the earthy highways charm; 
Reflection hath dispelled my heart's alarm ! 



114 



Strayed. 



By longings urged Heaven-breathing poets feel^ 1 

Haste thou and leap into thy gleaming keel ! ^ 

To shores receding touch thy smiling lips, I 

And bend to oars that send with lilting dips, j 

Like petrel wing-beats over rolling waves, ij 

Thy keel careering timed to rhythmic staves ! \ 



With maiden hands still smite the pleading lyre, 
A fond enthusiast filled with fragrant fire ; 
Inspired by passions freed from earth's despair, 
As fair and young as breathes the morning air; 
A soul, more bright than hers of Mityline, 
Of sun and sea and isles of summer-green ; 
Aglow with hope and fresh from fancy's store 
Full of new songs and thoughts undreamed before ;. 
Strive on until the golden days arrive, 
A maiden rife with poesy live and strive ; 
Though not so rash as burning Sappho strove. 
Oh ! that thou could'st like burning Sappho love I 



"5 



IN THE OLD ROADWAY. 

DOWN a rugged pathway skirted 
By underbrush brown and sere, 
My boyhood's hope unasserted, 

With words unsaid she should hear. 
In the sombre November weather, 

The great sun shorn of his flame. 
We out of the woods together 
Into the Old Roadway came. 

From before us the wild hare bounded, 

A fleet-footed, timorous thing. 
And the call of the raincrow sounded 

O'er the whirr of the partridge wing; 
While the wind like a loud-mouthed devil 

Howled up in the tree-tops high. 
And the leaves in an insane revel 

Through quivering reeds rushed by. 

Into the Old Roadway jesting 

We came, her heart full of cheer ; 
But the true was my courage testing. 

And I was distressed with care. 
I hoped that Heaven would compel her 

To tarry a moment or so, 
Por I loved her, but could not tell her, 

And this caused all my woe ! 

ii6 



In the Old Roadway. 

But in the dear days that were over^ 

In my boyhood's dreams forsooth, 
Was I not her girlhood's lover ? 

Was she not the joy of my youth > 
And now at the golden landing 

I touched of man's estate, 
While she was a maiden standing 

At womanhood's glorious gate ! 



From face and eyes that were gifted,. 

She gave me the look that stirs ; 
My troubled soul was uplifted. 

It seemed that my life was hers ! 
But the gloom of skies overclouded 

She could in my face behold. 
And thoughts that upon me crowded 

Still left me my sorrow untold ! 



We stood in the Roadway parting, 

The storm made desolate moan ; 
She — she to the school-house starting. 

But / to wander alone ! 
She only thought of the classes 

Still missing her face that day. 
And down through the woodland passes^ 

I watched her hasten away ! 



117 



Woods and Waters. 



Hard by in straggling disorder, 

A village loomed in the wood; 
And over beyond its border 

The old academy stood. 
I saw its gray walls gleaming, 

I saw her enter its door ; 
Still stand in the Roadway dreaming, 

But never have seen her more ! 



Yet memories growing dimmer 

Which burn on my life's rude track, 
Most fragrant and brightest that glimmer 

Upon me looking back — 
God knows that the gracious favor 

Had held all those in eclipse 
To have kissed in its morning flavor 

The breathing rose of her lips! 



A JUNE CAROL. 

THEIR chilly spendors the moons withhold 
And earth no more is so dark and cold; 
The June suns sift through the blossomed trees, 
As they faintly stir in the blithesome breeze; 
And their full-blown leaves shed an emerald haze 
That darkly gleams down the woodland ways, 
While the fragrant flowers and ferns uphold 
In the mossy hollows their plumes of gold. 



O let's follow the trail of the shower 
Down forest-lanes to its sylvan bower ! 
Along under the trees where sun-glances pour, 
Through the glimmering shade to its leafy door ! 
For gladness bides in a favorite nook 
In secret fastnesses down by the brook, 
In the Rain's green palace of flowers and ferns 
Where fair Almalthea her horn overturns ! 



119 



Woods and Waters. 



Where the butterfly dwells, and the wild rose tips 
Her nectarous cup to his golden lips ; 
Where the brown bee, bending the frail harebell, 
At blissful ease sips the pure hydromel; 
Where flowery censers, so daintily hung 
The slenderous boughs and branches among. 
By a bird-wing stirred or a zephyr too near. 
Sweetly spill their perfumes in the atmosphere ! 



O hie with me to the vine-clad nook. 

To the Rain's green palace down by the brook ! 

For long in its center, sweet and true, 

My heart has kept a secret for you ! 

Haste, Love, haste ! For the flowers of June, 

Like the hopes of youth, will fade so soon ! 

For all glad things flying hours pursue. 

And my secret will lose its charm for you ! 



The big round suns, now so warm and nigh, 
Will quickly go down in a clouded sky. 
And moons come up with their splendors cold, 
Chilling the fair flowers in their hearts of gold. 
The blossoms and leaves from the tree-tops tall. 
On the earth made dreary will redden and fall, 
And the trail of the shower down the forest-lanes 
Will soon be obscured by the ruinous rains ! 



JESSIE OR JESSICA, WHICH ? 

FROM the land of song and story, 
From my own dear land you came, 
For you are clad in its glamour and glory. 
Its garments of shadow and flame. 



The loves that the long summers lend her 
There reared, in you may be traced ; 

A blood-red rose daily flaunts its splendor 
At the belt encircling your waist. 



Your name, not another may match it, 
Would a Poet's page enrich ; 

I heard it spoken, but failed to catch it. 
Was it Jessie or Jessica, which ? 

The gods of the South endowed you 
With glances that daze like wine, 

Then decreed and at length allowed you 
To look on the face of mine ! 



Or you unto songs have listened 

That the Lorelei sang at eve. 
Till fatal charms in your dark eyes glistened 

Whereat I tremble and grieve. 



Woods and Waters. 



Or your soul in a dream rejoices 
Imbibed under languid moons, 

Amid the thunder of reptile voices 
Awaking the somber lagoons. 



Hence there is a strange fascination, 
Which makes me about you see 

A nocturnal beauty, a weird elevation, 
That stirs the mystic in me ! 



And though I may seem undaunted, 
My weakness leaving no trace. 

Yet I have felt that my heart was haunted 
Since you first looked on my face ! 



But there are rosy transfusions 
In your girlish mien that declare 

Your soul embued with as bright illusions 
As your face is aerially fair ! 



And so sweet are the moods that grace you. 
And so modest your sense of shame. 

From a kindling blush, could I kiss and embrace you, 
You would burst into fragrant flame ! 



Jessie or Jessica, Which 



Your body with incense laden, 

Would burn like a gorgeous bloom, 

And melt away, O exquisite maiden ! 
And henceforth be a perfume. 



Through the land where the leaf is greenest 

That flutters on tree or weed, 
In the golden clime whose sky is serenest, 

In paths parallel we proceed. 



And though never the green leaves screen us, 
And though each the other descries. 

Like a broad blue ribbon rippHng between us. 
The River of Silence Hes ! 



In the clasp of billows elysian 
The opposite sand dunes gleam, 

Whereon you pass like a radiant vision 
One sometimes sees in a dream ! 



Though a cloud with a silvery scallop 

Partially obstructs the view, 
I will fold my heart in a rose-leaf shallop 

And sail it over to you ! 



123 



ESTRANGED. 

PRIDE keeps the eyes as clear as dawn 
By forcing back the tears, 
But lets the injured heart weep on, 
No human hears ! 



Yet grief that makes no vain out-cry 

As from untold despair, 
Still breathes a murmur heard on high 
Like wordless prayer 1 



Thus with a sorrow half divine 
I mourn you coldly changed, 
A gift, a joy no longer mine, 
O friend estranged ! 



I loved the homely gown you wore, 

The ribbon in your hair ; 
To me the flower your bosom bore 
Was more than fair ! 



124 



Estranged. 



Slow were the strolls we had alone, 

Low were the words we said, 
Life's sweet romance about us thrown, 
Its real fled ! 



For on the locust avenues 

The moon her witchery weaves, 
And dewdrops sift with scent profuse 
Through locust leaves. 



O sweet the whisper ! sweet the theme ! 

And sweet the wish unsaid ! 
Scarce sweeter were the blissful dream 
Of youths that wed ! 



We worshiped birds, we worshiped flowers, 

We worshiped storm and flood; 
We worshiped Night's enchanted hours, 
'Twas in our blood ! 



125 



Woods and Waters. 



Along the moon-lit avenues 

I wander now alone, 
But find from sheen that thither woos 
The charm has flown ! 



Alas ! though pride conceals profound 

My trustful heart betrayed, 
Earth sheds no balm that heals the wound 
Your treachery made ! 



And so in silence I deplore 

Your cherished friendship's end, 
A boon, a treasure mine no more, 
O faithless friend ! 



126 



ODE TO A ROBIN. 

THY song with morning breaks, 
Sweet Robin, and its short refrains 
Soft on my casement splash like sudden rains 
Of flowers that shatter into flakes ; 
All unaware my soul from slumber wakes 
Full of thy cheery strains. 

Thou dost not skyward soar, 
Nor thy songs bubble through the trees 
Throbbing with mortal pain ; but on the breeze 
Come leaf- arousing, dancing o'er, 
What time the dawn begins to broadly pour 
Its flood o'er land and seas ! 

No keen wound subtly pains 
Thy heart, no woe that inly grieves. 
Into my being, crying, wanly weaves ; 

Which, when thou ceasest, still complains, 
O Robin, pouring ever-joyous strains 
Amid the dewy leaves ! 

Oft in my deeper dreams 

I hear thee dwindled to a tone, 

Like love's own lute ere love has sorrow known ; 
Or flutings wound by twilight gleams 
In Fairyland along the golden streams. 
From elfin pipers blown ! 



127 



Woods and Waters. 



Thin flageolets and veins 

Of music faint and far away, i 

That lure me forth from sleep's oblivious sway \ 

Wherein the woeful presence wanes, ■ 

And lead me where, a child in rosy lanes, ■ 

Again I laugh and stray ! 

Bird of melodious powers ! '% 

Before thee what green valley swells, \ 

What fountains blue ? that from thy full throat wells \ 

But gladness only ? Fadeless flowers, ^ 

Unclouded sky and scented summer bowers ) 

Where Joy forever dwells ? ': 

I 
\ 

To woo and win from Death, ; 

Shows thee a wondrous conjurer; \ 

Thy song that creeps into the dreamful ear, \ 

The Heart's red blossom shattereth ; \ 

Once more I feel the fresh and fragrant breath j 

Of hopes about to stir ! \ 

I 

Each like some dainty gem, \ 

Illumes the cloud that shields the whole, j 

The young hopes nested in my boyish soul, | 

O soon to be, blest brood of them, \ 

Like winged flowers in ruby seas a-swim, \ 

Bright summits for their goal ! - \ 



[28 



! 

Ode to a Robin. : 

These years with all they hold \ 

Of weary burthens that increase, \ 

Annihilated, melt away and cease; \ 

Once more about me as of old, '; 

The bloom-bewildered orchards are unrolled 

In breezy joy and peace ! i 

j 

With self-same looks it wore, , 

Looms the old homestead green and grand! \ 

Now happy voices reach me where I stand, \ 

And oh ! I see once more, once more, ■ j 

My youthful mother in the open door, j 

The distaff in her hand ! j 



O House where I was born ! 
Where I was reared and reached the goal 
Of manhood free from ills that now control ! 
Where I, amid the flowers and corn, 
In boyhood romped with ne'er a dream forlorn 
Preying upon my soul! — 

Your scenes before me laid 
Are all familiar. Glad and bright 
The wavering landscape broadens in my sight ! 

Here first I yielded undismayed. 

Then felt the young soul stir within me swayed 
By song and sorrow's might ! 



129 



Woods and Waters. 



Alas ! I do not err ! 
I felt it in a mournful thrill 
Among my spirit's leaves, like winds that fill 

The murmurous groves of pine and fir; 

The spirit's leaves that Song hath set a-stir, 
Can never more be still ! 



What wonder that I said, 
In touch with things that made me weep, 
**Love, lift thy wings and let me safely creep 

Thereunder, I am so afraid!" 

The red dawn blushing like the sky had bled, 
Did all earth oversweep ! 



Thus breaks the magic spell 
Thy glad notes weave about me, heard 
Among my morning slumbers, happy bird ! 
Sing on ! I, too, should sing as well. 
But ne'er was heart whose songs thus joyfully swell. 
By pain or passion stirred ! 



130 



MAY DAYS. 

NOW splendors flash and gleam on high, 
And orchards stir with breezy lightness, 
And gorgeous suns flood earth and sky 
With radiant brightness. 



These are the joyous days I love 

In open field or woodland hoary. 
The beauty of the clouds above, 
The rainbow's glory. 

A rush of song now soars aloft 

That bears not Music's storied madness. 
Poured forth spontaneous, clear and soft. 
From hearts of gladness. 

Thus, matins lavished on the wood, 
Where rosy convolutions bind me, 
Suggest the beautiful and good 

When youth enshrined me. 



I looked up morning vistas then. 

And sought the goal that poets treasure,. 
While hope's glad whisperings within 
But promised pleasure. 



131 



Woods and Waters. 



Yet breathed among the solemn trees, 

When stars the darkened skies are thronging, 
Swell trills and strains that might appease 
A poet's longing. 



Thus warbled in unearthly vein 

Night's lonely ear aerially taunting, 
Song conjures up some latent pain, 
My bosom haunting. 

For hidden in eternal change, 

To me there seems impending danger; 
Even life in every phase is strange. 
And death is stranger ! 

Ye birds ! — some with the rainbow crests — 

From you one should some solace borrow ! 
There seems within your tuneful breasts 
No thought of sorrow ! 

But here where fragrant breezes blow, 

'Tis I who from the May-days sever ; 
Sing on, sweet birds, exempt from woe, 
Sing on forever ! 



132 



DISILLUSION. 

WITHIN the sad sea's wave, 
No sudden sound with merry tingle 
Above the ocean's somber stave, 

Breaks, forth from fabled mermaid's ingle 
Within the sad sea's wave; 
Nor chimes from rills that lories crave 

Which lull the shore where cascades jingle,. 
Might woo dead Naiads from the grave ; 

Nor pools leaf-screened along the dingle 
Tempt Sylphides down in them to lave 

Ere their bright eddies meet and mingle 
Within the sad sea's wave. 



133 



Woods and Waters.- 



Where sweet the roses dream 

No more the Old-time fairies rally, 
Nor lifted eyes seek morning's beam, 

Nor drooping lids with slumber dally 
Where sweet the roses dream ; 
Yet dusk and silence haunt the stream, 

Till weird along its emerald alley 
It lies enclasped in charm supreme ; 

Each ripple sparkling mystically 
Up through the stilly starlight's gleam 

Which silvers o'er the pulseless valley 
Where sweet the roses dream. 



On as from tomb to tomb, 

O'er all the earth in mystery keeping 
Life's clashing walks have narrow room — 

Walks wherein Sorrow passes weeping 
On as from tomb to tomb ! 
Unknown the soul's impending doom, 

Or what dire thing befalls us sleeping 
Enshrouded aye in voiceless gloom ! 

Meanwhile, a low cloud's shadow sweeping 
O'er wastes of bursting bud and bloom, 

Comes dark ObHvion o'er us creeping 
On as from tomb to tomb ! 



134 



ZOAR. 

A CHURCH IN GRAVES COUNTY, KY. 

CHARMS from oblivion screen 
Thee and thy beauty, O Zoar ! 
And keep thee, as years intervene. 
In my memory flourishing green. 
Blest and beloved evermore ! 

On an embankment of flowers 

Rolling in waves down the streams 
I followed in youth's happy hours, 
Through fragrant, luxurious bowers, 
Clad in a raiment of dreams — 

Thou, as in forests elysian 

Flashing a luminous light 
Through many a leafy incision. 
Didst rise on my juvenile vision. 

Silent, and solemn, and white ! 

I as more used to the wood 

Timidly shunned thee within ; 
The dear people who misunderstood 
Believed me, because of my mood. 
Full of irreverence and sin. 



135 



Woods and Waters. 



Frequent, O Zoar, when thy hymn 

Swelling, arose like a knell, 
Birds sprang from environing limb 
And sought perches more shaded and dim 

Down in the neighboring dell. 



Then, as ecstatic with truth. 

Oft thy stentorian words 
Pierced coverts that sheltered a youth 
Abashed — playing truant — forsooth, 

Like to those innocent birds ! 



as with the feet of the breeze 
Over thy tree-studded lawns 

1 bounded in bare-footed ease, 
The rare time that deliciously flees 

Ere one's majority dawns ! 



Played on thy bloom-covered slopes 

Free as the vagabond herds 
The sweet hour when new beauty opes, 
My heart full of bright-budding hopes 
Blown into dreams and not words ! 



136 



Zoar. 



Some than white roses were whiter, 

Some than fair faces of nuns, 
And some than the thistle-down lighter, • 
And some than the rainbow were brighter, 

Beautiful toy of the sun's ! 



Such was the scene that enshrined 

When my young days like a flood 
Rushed forth pouring over my mind 
Inspirations with dreams intertwined, 
Ever to endure in my blood ! 



Yet, not thy splendor and gleam 
Even when June on thee shines; 

Not these, with the lawn and the stream, 

O Zoar ! in my lasting esteem 
Lift thee above other shrines ! 



Nay, not thy walls newly done 

Awing the green solitude ; 
Nor thy gables that flash in the sun, 
Nor eaves with their scallops upon 
Sawed of some odorous wood ! 



137 



Woods and Waters. 



Still from thy resonant walls, 

Peans of fervency born 
My heart through the world-din recalls, 
And an air on my consciousness falls 

Sweet with the odors of morn ! 



Yet, though imposing and grand. 

Matted with reeds that entwine, 
Not forests around thee that stand — 
But the clasp of a delicate hand 
Wrought thee, O Zoar, most divine ! 



She was a glorious maid, 

Meet for a lord to adore ; 
In me she believed, for me prayed ; 
And still are the thoughts undecayed 

Culled of her gospeling lore. 



Meeting in life's morning hour, 

I by her beauty allured 
Passed days in her hospitable bower ; 
And there my young soul got its dower, 

Deep in the greenwood immured ! 



138 



Zoar. 



Leaves of the Laurel blown high, 

Oft the true lover inspire ; 
And thus with my first votive sigh, 
They were tossed between me and the sky, 

Flashing incentives that fire ! 



Therefore, in mart or in mine 
Filling with exquisite pains, 
I have been — deeming woman divine — 
Aye love's litanist bowed at her shrine, 
Chanting melodious refrains ! 



139 



THE HERO. 

WITH eager eyes, each like some lustrous bead, 
With lifted face aglow with inborn light, 
We stand a-tiptoe stretched to our full height, 
To view the man who fills his country's need ; 
The soul heroic, by whose word and deed 
We are exalted. On him honors bright 
Are heaped spontaneous. Mankind knows by sight 
And loves him, God-like, who was born to lead ! 



For though the voice of Jove was heard on high 
And there were wrought ere Sinai's summit flamed, 
Good deeds that shed a glory through all time, 
This earth, home erst where heroes clomb the sky. 
Still teems with greater than for whom were named 
The starry spheres that make yon heavens sublime ! 



140 



JULIETTE. 

ABOUT machinery where one feels 
That worry kills at last, 
Where one would deem no witchery steals, 

My duty holds me fast. 
It seems my heart in time would learn 

The sluggish shop to slur, 
But on my cheek deep blushes burn 
And glad thoughts in me stir. 



Embodied grace, without a care, 

Of lithe and willowy form, 
'Tis Juliette, flitting here and there, 

With sunny heart and warm. 
Like sunshine on a cloud that gleams 

So flower-like down its track, 
Some brightness in her presence seems 

To beat the shadows back ! 



141 



Woods and Waters. 



O Herrick, songful mouth of gold, 

Whose measures still ensnare, 
The Julia, whom you praised of old, 

I say, was not so fair ! 
Let love's sweet dream the home enhance 

Where'er its fairy scene. 
But tell me not that love's romance 

Is all in woodlands green ! 



For here among these city walls. 

As in the olden time, 
Love's magic touch my heart enthralls 

And starts its willing rhyme ; 
And fragrant flames my soul illume, 

And golden dreams enshrine, 
And toiling in this narrow room 

With her, seems half divine ! 



142 



BELLS OF ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH. 

BELLS of St. Patrick's, your refrain 
On morning breezes cast, 
Brings back into my thoughts again 

Days of the happy past; 
Days ever dear ! days ever fair ! 

The joyous days that flood 
The youthful mind with visions rare, 
And dreams that stir the blood ! 



And I a day among them find, 

'Mid shadows blown away, 
Gleams like a golden light enshrined — 

It was my wedding day! 
With prayers I sought to win her smile 

That made my tear-drops start ; 
Not hers, unyielding all the while. 

Long I besieged her heart ! 



Fighting — me from herself she flung. 

Defiant, to be free. 
And willful — yet was shy and young, 

O what a prize was she ! 
Bells of St. Patrick's — ring, I pray ! 

Set your deep tones astir ! 
These tidings glad to all convey. 

My love did conquer her ! 

143 



Woods and Waters. 

Though beaten, baffled, held at bay, 

I could not fail nor falter ; 
Exultant, on a Sabbath day 

I led her to the altar. 
Sweet scene whose rare effulgence seems 

Rose-colored, darkening slow. 
Transpiring with its radiant gleams 

Some twenty years ago ! 

Among the choristers in the loft. 

It makes my heart rejoice, 
Now, like the Village Blacksmith, oft 

I hear my daughter's voice ! 
So new, so fresh, like bubbling brooks, 

With song's inspiring leaven. 
It seems to flood the numerous nooks. 

Like echoes blown from Heaven ! 

Thus mingling with the organ's peal, 

Her full melodious notes 
Deep-swelling, make the worshipers feel 

Their hearts rise in their throats ! 
Bells of St. Patrick's, ring aloud ! 

A leal ambition stirs ; 
Of conscious gift so justly proud, 

Some triumph shall be hers ! 



144 



BALLADE OF THE LOVELIEST GIRL. 

HER hair is brown and it crowns her, too, 
And rare the luxuriant wealth it shows is ; 
Her cheeks are tinged with a delicate hue, 

As pink as the blush from the peach that flows is ; 
On her fair young face what comes and goes is 
The sheen of thoughts that her soul embue ; 

Her teeth are as pearls and Grecian her nose is — 
She's the loveliest girl that I ever knew ! 



Just half-way wet with the fragrant dew, | 

Down where the most tropical flov/er that blows is; ] 

Or up where the heavens are moist and blue, i 

Where dawn like a roseate fountain reposes ; \ 

Or spaced where the greenest of verdure that glows is, i 

There abides no beauty more charming and true ; 

From her eyes still fairer the glance she throws is — j 

Shis the loveliest girl that I ever knew ! \ 



145 



Woods and Waters. 



In a garden the warm wind wanders through, 
But long in its center dreams and dozes, 

Till flowers are blown where the weeds are few ; 
Like brown bees crowd where none of their foes is„ 
With golden lips where the sweetest that grows is. 

Come forth her young lovers intent to woo. 

For a man but knowing her one of her beaux is — 

She^s the loveliest girl that I ever knew! 



L'ENVOI. 

O MAN, hke a scented shower of roses. 
The sweets of her fresh young soul on you 

She pours when her rosebud mouth uncloses- 
She^s the loveliest girl that I ever knew I 



146 



TO A PERFECT POEM. S 

i 

LIKE the sighs of a wave starward blowing^ J 

Tide-heaved in the far middle-main, • 

There are numbers intangibly flowing, i 

Soul-throbbed through my wearying brain ; j 

While here with the strong and the knowing ] 

I helplessly stand in my pain, i 

As they tremble toward skies that are glowing — j 

Toward skies that are open and glowing, j 

Whose luminous fires never wane. i 



Like a chime full of pathos and pretty, 

That dies in the air overhead, 
Like the cry in the marts of the city 

From hearts that have suffered and bled, 
Like the sound of a spiritual ditty 

Hummed over the feverish bed, 
They are laden with Love and her pity — 
With Love and her infinite pity. 

With Life and its dream of the dead ! 



147 



Woods and Waters. 



Never murmur was crooned over pillow, 

Never bird in the tremulous cane, 
Never wind in the boughs of the willow, 

Has breathed half so soft a refrain 
As the hymn thus intoned by the billow, 

The lyric I grasp at in vain, 
Ever sung by my Soul in her villa — 
By my Soul in her Ocean-girt villa, 

All art lying mute in the strain ! 



Poem, thus futilely wooing 

My heart in its songs to be heard, 

In chords human helplessness ruing 

More subtle than metre may gird, 

1 hear thee still patiently suing 

Like the moan for a boon ne'er conferr'd. 
Which pleadeth for Sorrow's subduing — 
For Sorrow's most pensive subduing, 

In the song of a desolate bird ! 



TO A DEAD SINGER. 

SPONTANEOUS warbler, sinless, white,. 
Whose tuneful soul by grief unstung, 
Had been, like love the gods requite, 
Forever gay, forever young — 



Born of the sunbeam, dew and spring. 
Too soon into death's vortex drawn, 

Still, still like some enchanted string, 
Thy voice on earth sounds on and on ! 



Thus, Death who plumes the trustful wing,. 
And his Ally who victory claims, 

Doth plume in vain, doth lose his sting, 
On all who gain enduring names ! 



The miscreant Fates that smite and curse. 
This minstrel's hungering heart forgives. 

To know thy earnest, gladsome verse. 

Though thou hast perished, lives, still lives li 



149 



Woods and Waters. 



This truth and triumph understood, 

Hard cheered thee while below the sky, 

Assured thy songs, so true and good, 
Dear one, could never wholly die ! 



Sweet, mournful woman, rest in peace- 
In hallowed peace, I plead and pray 

Thy fame shall gather bright increase 
And like a new star shine some day. 



For thine are songs that bless and save. 
And prove in other lives a leaven ; 

Shed lusters o'er the Poet's grave, 
And blossom almost high as heaven. 



ISO 



BY THE RIVER. 

WHEN youth was a gladsome giver 
Of beautiful dreams that flee, 
I stood by a mournful river, 

And my soul stood there with me. 
A fair young maid had passed over 

In days that were half divine. 
And I was her chosen lover. 
And she as a child was mine. 



In a dream whose beauty had won me, 

I gazed o'er the river's brim, 
The shadow of woodlands upon me. 

Of woodlands dense and dim; 
And over beyond and near it, 

I discovered a maiden fair. 
And I said to my wistful spirit, 

' ' My love ! I know she is there ! " 

Above me, the light clouds dabbled 

In blue air by cool winds blown; 
Below me, broad waters babbled 

In a murmurous monotone. 
And I said in a speech that pleases, 

" O wave, go whisper her sweet! 
And with lips as pure as the breeze's, 

Kiss her immaculate feet ! " 



[51 



Woods and Waters. 

But my words died down in the distance, 

The sad waters taking no heed, 
And I said with the wind's assistance 

It may be I shall succeed; 
For it loves the fair young lasses, 

And wooes and wins them with ease ; 
But the wind slyly hid in the grasses, 

Or fled through the tremulous trees ! " 

" O cloud ! " I exclaimed imploring, 

" Unto her a message bear ! " 
But the cloud, my request ignoring. 

Dissolved into viewless air ! 
Thus, the wave was but futilely greeted, 

And the shy wind ceased its refrain ; 
For naught was the cloud entreated, 

And all my eiforts were vain ! 

Yet, still v.'ith the waters between us, 

With the light clouds airily blown, 
In sight of my love, my Venus, 

I stand in sorrow alone ! 
The beautiful Southern maiden 

Still flourishes fair as a rose ; 
But my life with loneliness laden 

No sweet affinity knows! 



152 



A SONG OF THE FOREST. 

THE streets and the walls thou abhorrest, 
The dust and turmoil of the pave ; 
Let us haste to the free-breathing forest, 

From strife and the marts that enslave ! 
To the waterfall's ariose ditty, 

To the leaf-sheltered shade of the glen, 
Let us fly from the glare of the city, 
From haunts and the babble of men ! 



For we worship our great common mother. 

We adore the old gods of the grove, 
And we love in our hearts one another. 

And the forest hath altars for love. 
As again in the days of our childhood. 

Let us loiter where streams ripple on ; 
Romance ever dwells in the wildwood, 

Though Pan and the Naiads are gone ! 

The aisles of the forest are haunted 

By dreams of a multitude flown ; 
Let us hasten to spaces undaunted 

Where silences ache for a tone. 
Leaf-screened in the lush dusky places. 

Let us walk under boughs interlaced; 
And breathe in the freshness that braces. 

And odors that there go to waste ! 



153 



Woods and Waters. 



Twin hopes in our hearts were implanted 

By touch of the same sacred hand, 
And the region most charmed and enchanted 

For us, is the tree-studded land. 
O sweet be our theme and the story, 

With songs in our hearts that have grown; 
And sweet in the greenness and glory 

To worship our Idol alone ! 



Sweet poet, come, let us be merry, 

For Earth has her laughter and glee; 
The blossoms are on the wild cherry, 

The thickets are joyous and free ; 
And the woods, now exempt from sadness, 

Have many a melodious tree ; 
Every copse is an anthem of gladness, 

Each jungle, a grand Jubilee ! 



Yet Mirth, for a brief season only, j 

Profuse and spontaneous, sojourns ; j 

Let us haste where the forest is lonely \ 

And for lovers' company yearns. I 

Where naught of the city may follow, ■'. 

The dream of our hearts let us tell, \ 
Deep down in a. green mossy hollow . . 

Where bees and the butterflies dwell \ 



154 



A Song of the Forest. 



Where aureate daffodils twinkle, ; 

Like luminous showering stars, ; 

Soft lulled by the daintiest tinkle i 

Of musical shells on the bars •* 

Which emit, under grass-woven cover, . 

Though scarce from their slumber awoke, ■ 
Half-filled with the wind passing over, 

Faint sounds like a fairy-bell's stroke. i 



The leaves they will gather and hide us, 

The trees will be sentinels tall. 
Neither sorrow nor fear shall betide us, 

Neither evil nor harm shall befall. 
The birds they will sing to us sweeter. 

And joy, from the highland above, 
Come bounding on feet that are fleeter, 

Beholding that we are in love ! 



Sometimes, to the innocent-hearted, 

The fountains of blue are unsealed ; 
For us, the high clouds will be parted, 

And truths that lie hidden, revealed ; 
For the sky's mystic curtains are slanted, 

To let in the prayers of the good. 
And litanies of love that are chanted 

In temples and fanes of the wood ! 



155 



ENCHANTMENT. 

IN father's doorway frequent, 
I sat, a bare-foot boy, 
At eve, the shadows sequent, 

And viewed the stars with joy. 
A thousand bold cicadas 

Began a martial lay. 
While other shrill invaders 
In treetops piped away. 

The simple joy of living 

Inspired their tiny bars. 
But I, a child, was giving 

My reverence to the stars. 
Their music, harsh or tender, 

Fell from familiar trees ; 
The stars ! With tremulous splendor,. 

They gemmed the shadowy seas ! 

Mysterious and so many. 

Sublime, but far away; 
What beauties ! Were there any 

So strange and bright as they ? 
With some resentment rather 

I spurned attractions nigh, 
But longed in vain to gather 

The priceless gems on high. 

156 



Enchantment. 



Within the sky's dominion 

I saw their quenchless lights, 
But had no buoyant pinion 

To scale the cloudless heights. 
They may be all unreal, 

But, like the rose's bloom, 
About the fair ideal 

There lurks no ray of gloom. 



Sometimes in regions dimmer, 

I saw with childish eyes 
The vivid lightnings glimmer 

In low-down Southern skies. 
I heard no sullen thunders. 

Yet gazed on dazzling gleams, 
Became possessed of wonders 

And strange, fantastic dreams ! 



As touched with necromancy, 

They drew my thoughts from earth, 
And gave my boyhood's fancy 

A new ethereal birth. 
The golden hours were flitting, 

Yet where the light was dim. 
In father's doorway sitting, 

I filled with love of them. 

157 



Woods and Waters. 

Though one from youth inherit 

The fear that gives alarm, 
They breathed into my spirit 

A sweet, ecstatic charm. 
The gift thus deeply implanted 

To those of dream belongs, 
And hence my soul enchanted,. 

Still weaves its simple songs. 



What though they fail to win me 

A name that shines like gold, 
The chords that stir within me 

Awake with joys untold ; 
For, like some fair romancer, 

I heard the voice of dreams ; 
With joyful words that answer 

My heart since boyhood teems. 



158 



LOVE. 

OLOVE ! whose kindness long I share, 
Thy grace, thy glory, 
To me all fair things still declare 



In song or story ! ^ i 



Star of my soul whose quenchless gleam 

Burns soft and clearly. 
My life's bright ray, my youth's sweet dream, 

Loved long and dearly ! 



My soul and I, with thee above, 

Our theme as ever, 
We are but dreams of life and love, 

And high endeavor. 



My morning's balm ere tasks begin. 

My hope to-morrow ; 
My evening's calm for years hast been, 

My joy, my sorrow. 



All things that please, all things that bless 

In their completeness, 
Seem gifted of thy loveliness. 

And of thy sweetness 



159 



Woods and Waters. 



Yet I too often turn and speak 
But to displease thee, 

With blessed tears upon my cheek 
Still chafe and tease thee ; 



But that from thy bright eyes I wrung 

Before I knew it, 
Was like the boomerang which stung 

The hand that threw it ; 

And therefore, since I feel the pain 

Conjointly sting me, 
Know thou, O sweetheart, that I fain 

But joy would bring thee ! 

Forgive my failures when I come 

Thy kindness sharing, 
For love is blind, and also dumb. 

And sorrow-bearing ! 



1 60 



I 



INSPIRATION. 

DO not care 
For you you golden-gloried blonde 
With shining hair, 
Which seems to catch and hold in bond 
Light that doth lie the fleeting clouds beyond ! 



You only dream 
Of sun and glare of gorgeous things, 

And half-way seem 
Such sheen unto your raiment clings. 
Some airy Sylph who lost her way and wings ! 



I do not prize 
The dainty glance I scarce can see 

That steals from eyes, 
Which, faintly struggling to be free, 
Dense yellow lashes almost vail from me ! 



White, slender hands. 
Long waxen fingers veined with blue ; 

My soul withstands 
These and a throat of snowy hue. 
Though mellowest peals of laughter ripple through ! 



i6i 



Woods and Waters. 



Yet, thousands greet 
You, made of upper sky and air, 

Divinely sweet ; 
But all the gold-light in your hair 
Can ne'er this wary heart of mine ensnare [ 



Let Poets rave 
O'er splendors which your face illume, 

Each be a slave 
Of eyes that cast no ray of gloom. 
Daft with the languid airs you do assume ! 



Let them admire 
The heights of yon Empyrean skies 

Where flaming higher. 
Great grandeurs, dazzling, upward rise, 
Wherein no fluttering gleam of darkness lies ! 



But Earth I love, 
I love the shapes her shadow weaves, 

Her clouds above; 
The smell of rain on growing sheaves. 
And green buds bursting into flowers and leaves I 



162 



Inspiration, 



And fondlier yet 
I love with all her fiery dash, 

The brave brunette ; 
And for her smiles I court the clash 
Of armed combat daring what is rash ! 



For she uphfts me 
As night uplifts the wilted bud, 

Divinely gifts me, 
And doth my soul with sweet pains flood, 
And fire with quenchless flame my sluggish blood I 



So, in my dreams 
Of earth's exalted and sublime, 

To me she seems 
Not woman in her glory's prime, 
But some young goddess of the olden time ! 



Dark Juno-browed 
As reared within the Thunder's home 

Above the cloud, 
Who, over fields of ethery foam. 
From out the mist that fills the hollow dome. 



163 



Woods and Waters. 



Comes like a splash 
Of storm-cloud love's hot thirst to slake, 

With eyes that flash 
The subtle lightning that doth make 
Earth, sea and sky, strange wildering glamours take.! 



164 



LOVE SUB-ROSA. 

I LOVE — and my throbbing heart agrees — 
I love you, Sub-rosa, though a folly, 
For yours is a face to engage and please ; 
It relieves my heart of its melancholy, 
O'erfiows my mind with a feeling jolly, 
And wooes my rhymes like the rose and holly 
The golden lips of the honey-bees ! 



For yours — like a face in a dream one spies. 
Or fairest of those that charm and allure us — 

Is one of the few to worship and prize ; 
A face that doth with delight assure us. 
Whose smiles and wiles attract and secure us 
The love which will in your heart immure us- 

Immure us body and soul and eyes ! 



165 



Woods and Wafers. 



About your lips they twinkle and gleam, 

Faint o'er your cheeks into sheen of blushes, 

And in your eye-brows they hide and dream ; 
And if, like songs in the throats of thrushes, 
They bubble up from the fount that flushes 
And feeds the stream whence the feeling rushes. 

Oh ! drown me within that enchanted stream ! 



Ah, then my heart in a trance would lie 
Forever done with sorrow and sighing, 

All earth below me, above the sky ; 

No more your mouth with a rose-bud vying, 
Or your cherry-red lips when together lying, 
Could tempt me again into wailing and crying ; 

^' O Love ! let me kiss you once and die ! " 



i66 



OVER THE WALLS OF TRAFFIC. 

LIKE demons who mumble and mutter, 
Are men that I meet in the marts ; 
Harsh, harsh are the words that they utter, 
And cruel and cold are their hearts. 



They claim to be brother and brother, 
A merciful God in their creeds ; 

Yet flay and make meat of each other. 
Then laugh and exult in their deeds. 

Break, break from their intricate tangles 
Of interests that balefully twine ! 

From mercenary lords and their wrangles, 
O Psyche, sweet sister of mine ! 

Afar from where Poverty found us. 
Beyond the grim walls that arise, 

Which Trafi&c has builded around us. 
Is the Poet's beloved Paradise ! 



Each morn, on its verges unshrouded 
By glooms from red forges that stray, 

Aurora, in splendor unclouded. 
Stands sweeping the shadows away. 



167 



Woods and Waters, 



About her a music that blesses, '.. 

Spontaneous, blows with the breeze j ; 

And the tumult of trade that distresses ' 

Is sifted through blossoming trees. \ 

Oh ! Sandalphon the saint, must repeat his \ 

Beatified deeds where she stands, i 

For the good Poet's prayers and entreaties 

Are changed into flowers in her hands ; ■ 

And she casts them for mortals who love her ; 

Where each ever-afterward shines, ; 

And where worshipers among them discover \ 

Mysterious symbols and signs. \ 

A scintillant trail of them follows \ 

Faint zephyrs that lazily pass, ; 

Which gleams down the green mossy hollows, I 

Like butterflies poised on the grass. \ 

\ 

I 

Sister, look at their luminous legions ] 

In the light of immaculate skies ; J 

Let us hasten from dissolute regions ''■ 

To the Poet's beloved Paradise ! \ 



i68 i 



DAPHNE. 

(On reading Miss Elvira Sydnor Miller's fairy story. 
The Tiger's Daughter.) 

I NOW have been beyond and seen 
Past skies like azure veils unfurled, 
Which from the daily rude and real screen 
Thy fairy world. 



And feel like one for love and good, 
Whom Fancy, taking by the hand. 
Lead fondly through some vast enchanted wood, 
Or lotus-land. 



O'er many an earthly league Qn league, 

Yet new and strange, with eager tread, 
At will I wandered charmed, without fatigue 
Or sense of dread. 



169 



Woods and Waters. 



For there were verdurous fields and plains, 
With sun and dew that made them sweet, 
And leafy forests gay with elfin strains 
For fairy feet. 



Ah ! Daphne ! peering through the trees, 

I strove to sight thee just ahead ! 
Thy frou-frou garments fluttering in the breeze, 
But thou hadst fled ! 



Yet there, as with vermiHon splashed. 

Thy winged dreams through sun and shower, 
Glanced hke the long-tailed birds whose plumage flashed 
In Eden's bower ! 



Indeed, I was entranced complete ! 

My soul withdrew and stood apart. 
Forgetting that within my bosom beat 
A mortal heart ! 



170 



Daphne. 



Returned and found thee sweet as dew, 
Thy hps twin rosebuds ripe and red, 
A maiden fit for some young lord to woo, 
Unkissed! unwed! 



friend ! whose fair face overflows 
And tempts me with a crimson blush, 

1 love thee — love thee like a fragrant rose 

I fain would crush ! 



Thy rare dreams would I wildly tear 

And shed their leaves the rainbow lent, 
And leave them shining in the morning air 
A gleam, or scent ! 

Yet wisdom wills the spell unbroken 

Whose charm thy tinted pages hold, 
Enriched with new-born lusters that betoken 
Fresh veins of gold ! 



XIX 



MARY 



IN THE FACTORY. 

BORN in her soul's unfathomed deep, 
Fair hopes into her young heart creep, 
And golden gleams before her sweep ; 
While thought that rises, smile that glides, 
From fountains where pure joy abides, 
Doth redden still the crimson tides 
Whose floods, within blue-shaded creeks. 
Like sunrise over snow-clad peaks. 
Burst into rose-blooms on her cheeks ! 



By Fate compelled to labor here. 
Though poor like me, her heart sincere, 
Dream-crowded, holds not one of fear ; 
Amid this sonorous roar of wheels 
She comes, each morn, with merry peals 
Of laughter which she half conceals ; 
Yet, like some bird's spontaneous note, 
Whose sudden quavers o'er me float, 
They burst from her melodious throat ! 



172 



Mary 



Emerging into womanhood, 1 

As she, with all I have withstood, \ 

I know I am not half as good ; \ 

And therefore, feeling sorrow's smart, \ 

Like one in dreams I stand apart, \ 

And bless each day her guileless heart : ■ 

For she, dispelling half the gloom, \ 

Her presence like some fragrant bloom, \ 

Sheds brightness in this gruesome room. | 

The beauty on life's upward slope, ] 

While youth enchants its widening scope, ; 

Sustains and cheers her heart of hope ; i 

And grace and innocence reveal [ 

Her potency. In her I feel \ 

The power that sways man's heart of steel ; ; 

And it is meet, a woman now, ; 

Still on her lips the virgin's vow, ; 

While glory's halo spans her brow ! i 



'73 \ 



BABY'S. 

A BABY'S lips are charms complete, 
Like red rose-blooms the brown bee sips 
For love's best kiss what is most meet ? 
A baby's lips ! 

In streets past where the blue sky dips, 
Where angels congregate and greet, 
Doth aught this earthly joy ecHpse ? 

Dew-laden, towards the light and heat. 

No fragrant bloom its calyx slips. 
In all the world could make more sweet 
A baby's lips. 



A baby's cheek where beauty blooms. 

Where bright smiles play at hide and seek- 
'Tis heavenly splendor which illumes 
A baby's cheek ! 

Its sweetness blesses still the meek, 

Its innocence the evil dooms. 
Its magic maketh strong the weak. 

Old age, that droops among the tombs, 
Grows young again, however bleak, 
To kiss — what morning still perfumes — 
A baby's cheek ! 



174 



Baby's. 



A baby's word, akin to tears, 

So newly coined, doth blessing gird 
For every human heart that hears 
A baby's word ! 

The most melodious song of bird 

The freedom of the spring that cheers. 
Was ne'er so fondly, gladly heard ! 

From men's great hymns we turn our ears. 

Though be our souls sublimely stirred, 
To the small sound that most endears — 
A baby's word ! 



A baby's laugh, so clear and true, 

Is real and not cheat or chaff; 
No hollow mockery boundeth through 
A baby's laugh ! 

'Tis as a feast with more than half 

A nectar or a godly brew, 
Which satiates all athirst who quafif. 

Men feel new hope and courage new 

Sustain and serve them as a staff. 
For Heaven is heard from, listening to 
A baby's laugh ! 



t75 



IN HER GIRLHOOD. 



M^ 



Y verse should seem 
Like a rippling stream 
That doth through the greenwood glance and gleam, 
Or a wind at play 
With bloom and spray, 
Through the trembling grass that weaves its way. 

For I would dare 

With a poet's care, 
To image a maiden blithe and fair, 

About whose eyes 

A radiance lies 
Like the rainbow's gleam in the clouded skies. 

She now is seen 

Like the crimson sheen 
That burns and bursts through the calyx green, 

Her hope a thing 

Of the fairy spring, 
With a flash of dawn on its waving wing. 

Her girlish frame. 

Few see the same 
In splendor clad like a roseate flame. 

Nor comprehend 

How her garments blend 
With the beauty life and young years lend. 

176 



In Her Girlhood. 



For colors warm 

Enshrine her form, 
Like the glow of skies after night and storm ; 

Or the light that flows 

From a tropic rose, 
Which the wind of the springtime open blows ! 

Her glance, her smile, 

Each maiden wile, 
Hath a charm that doth every heart beguile; 

Her laugh, her word, 

Wherever heard, 
Are the trill and chirp of the singing bird. 

Still, still with ease 

And grace that please. 
She pours a flood from the ivory keys; 

So soft, so pure, 

So clear, demure, 
Each stroke would the daintiest ear allure. 



Yea, o'er and o'er. 

She wins encore 
With the strangest airs ever heard before. 

Her art as such. 

Thrills overmuch 
With something more than a mortal's touch ! 



177 



Woods and Waters. 



In song that flies j 

When her accents rise, i 

You seem to hear as from paradise, \ 

A sound so sweet, 

Each rhythmic beat : 
To an exquisite flower turns complete ! 

i 

And the eye that seeks \ 

Up nebulous creeks \ 

Which reach life's blue and enchanted peaks, ■; 

Finds no one stood \ 

More noble and good \ 

On the verge of a glorious womanhood ! " 

I 

Loves that inspire < 

And lift her higher, 

Are the loves that touch royal hearts with fire ; ) 

And she, I own, ; 

On Beauty's throne, I 

As a queen of girlhood stands alone. ' 

'i 

Yea, there she stands \ 

Full heart and hands — ' 

Before her, earth and its teeming lands ; '\ 

Behind her, mist \ 

By white moons kissed, \ 

And the trailing splendors of amethyst 1 \ 



17$ 



THE CITY OF SONG. 

THOU wast one of the Muse's fair daughters^ 
Who joyed in her heavenly sway, 
With thy keel in most luminous waters 

That lave magic lands far away ! 
She gave thee a gift but to be with thee, 

A light dazzling eyes that adored, 
To take to the world or to sea with thee, 
Like the flame that enveloped the sword ! 

Thy name was a rare incantation. 

Thy presence was nothing but joy ; 
In thy friendship I found inspiration 

Long indulgence has failed to destroy. 
But thy grace unbestowed for division, 

And thy bearing imbibed as from birth 
Into being and substance and vision, 

Were enough to entice one from earth ! 



Fair dreams o'er thy face shed their glory, 

Thy soul was illumed with their sheen ; 
As true voyager in song or in story, 

Ne'er fonder enthusiast was seen. 
Thy sail when the dawn rosy-fingered 

Plucked stars from the chrysophrase pave. 
Far, far from the shore where I lingered. 

Gleamed white o'er the azurine wave. 



179 



Woods and Waters. 



Yet, alas ! thou didst turn as deceiving 

From splendors of Poesy's Cathay, 
As illured by the lights thou wast leaving 

Which illume a Provence in decay ! 
Here since thou hast sung with the thrushes, 

Thy tenantless keel I deplore, 
Like Pike's old canoe in the rushes, 

Mold-covered, made fast to the shore. 



For thou art — in ways unbecoming 

The beautiful gifts of thy mind — 
Steadfast in Society's slumming. 

To children's amusement resigned. 
I own it is all very pretty, 

A diversion to unbend, I agree ; 
But oh ! unto Heaven shrieks the pity, 

If apportioned by fate unto thee ! 



Break forth from assignments unending. 
From labors unworthy and wrong; 

fair truant, from sorrows impending, 
Let us sail to the City of Song ! 

1 see it across crystalline billows 
That wash an Arcadian strand, 

O'er a fringe and enlacement of willows — 
Beyond, in the heart of the land ! 



1 80 



The City of Song. 



I see it through avenues gleaming, 

In a valley of greenness and rest, 
A bright City with ornaments teeming, 

For the Muse's true votaries blest ! 
Over palace and dome everlasting, 

Over shrines with their treasures untold,. 
Their high towers and minarets casting 

Strange glamours of jasper and gold ! 



Out of walls — massive walls that have risen, 

And darkened the glory of morn — 
Which stand like a menace, imprison 

And hold us dismayed and forlorn. 
Let us sail to the magical City 

Where love is a joy evermore, 
And a gift never Angels may pity, 

Though deathless in souls that adore 1 



MY LADY'S SISTER. 

YOU must be in love with your sister, 
And I am in love with her too, 
For her looks are so frank they enlist her 
The love unto innocence due. 



The grace like a gift that enfolds her 
One's fear and foreboding disarms, 

And a man any time who beholds her 
Is pleased to remember her charms. 



On the tip of her long lily finger 
Or the red richer bloom of her lips, 

O a kiss would as lovingly linger, 
As a bee that but daintily sips ! 



The blush from its fount that emerges 
Doth over her countenance run, 

Like a cloud o'er the dawn's rosy verges 
Kissed by the invisible sun. 



182 



My Ladys Sister. 



But the gold in her hair that entrances 
Is more than the sun ever gave, 

And a blessing like prayer from her glances 
Will comfort you down to the grave. 



Good deeds and their blessings enlist her, 
While her loveliness many extol ; 

Ah ! such is your beautiful sister 
As she trips over Life's rosy shoal ! 



Long, long in my memory's mansion, 
Let her loiter like one from above, 

Until through the years' bright expansion, 
She becomes as my own early love, 



Who yet with my youth's happy story 
Mid dreams in my soul is up-hung, 

A maiden enshrined in a glory 

Which keeps her immortally young ! 



183 



A SAIL— TRIOLETS. 

A SAIL comes to you, 
Through a cloud's rosy scallop ; 
Look up towards the blue, 
A sail comes to you ; 
My heart, 'tis your due, 

In a large yellow shallop ; 
A sail comes to you 

Through a cloud's rosy scallop. 



It gleams on the ken. 
Like an argosy golden ; 

Illumined within. 

It gleams on the ken, 

With words that will win 
And hopes that embolden : 

It gleams on the ken, 
Like an argosy golden. 



184 



A Sail — Triolets. 



It swims in the breeze, 
O exquisite maiden ! 
High over the trees, 
It swims in the breeze, 
With treasures that please 

And fantasies laden ; 

It swims in the breeze, 

O exquisite maiden : 



My Heart, it is yours 

With all its endeavor; 
With faith that assures, 
My Heart, it is yours 
And with love that endures 



Forever and ever; ; 

My Heart, it is yours '] 

With all its endeavor. i 



185 



THE REED WHISTLE. 

ERE life to me and the earth were olden, 
On a Sabbath day in the shine and sheen 
Of a raiment of days like a jewel golden, 

When my heart was young and the woodlands green ; 
With one of my neighbor's comely daughters, 

Down Massac creek, an emerald run, 
With her I followed the cool, clear waters 
That purled and flashed in the morning sun. 



O the June-day skies they were soft and sunny ! 

And bees multitudinous came and went. 
While flowery censers, spilling their honey, 

With them o'er-laden swayed and bent. 
The breezes brought a melodious greeting 

From choristers setting the leaves a- whirl ; 
One with the spring's heart my heart was beating, 

But I could not talk to the shy young girl ! 



i86 



The Reed Whistle. 



Some tall reeds stood among thorn and thistle 

Whose slender stems in the blithe air stirred, 
I partook of one and made me a whistle 

And blew a note like the mocking bird ; 
Again I blew, and was glad to discover 

The music's charm on her fair face lay ; 
Then first I seemed a successful lover, 

And sweet were the lips I kissed that day ! 



But alas ! from woods and their fairy-like bowers, 

From paths I trod when a barefoot boy. 
The golden romance and the bright wild flowers 

Are gone with illusions the years destroy ! 
And before me now for the scenes that stir 

I look no more with expectant eyes, 
But joy was mine when I roamed with her. 

And Massac-bottoms my Paradise ! 



[87 



BEAUTY IDEAL. 

O'ER all we love dilates 
A charm words cannot reach ; 
And Poesy that creates 
When gifted souls beseech, 
The most resplendent speech, 
Here baffled, scarce approximates ! 



Some glory upward lies 

Perhaps, that makes us fond. 

To which we fain would rise ; 
Some mystery all unconned 
We cannot look beyond, 

Arched o'er us like the glowing skies t 



An object thus enshrined 

Has that which makes it fair ; 

Vainly with wakeful mind, 
We seek it everywhere ; 
Alas ! in our despair, 

We cry aloud that love is blind ! 

i88 



Beauty Ideal. 

Inspiring glad surprise, 
Its subtleness is such 

It mocks discernful eyes ; 
Something we cannot touch, 
Yet feel it over-much — 

Some power unseen that glorifies ! 



Yea, power that answereth 
And joys the true and fond, 

That sweetens bitter breath 
And holds our hearts in bond 
As close as stem and frond, 

And brightens o'er the brow of death! 



Embodied, it is she 

The Poet wooes at eve ; 

His queen she comes to be 

And thenceforth, though he grieve. 
From spells her witcheries weave. 

He never more can wander free ! 



Of her with patient ruth. 
Forever fair and young — 

Of her and living truth, 

With harp melodious strung — 
His golden mouth has sung 

Since love and poesy's joyous birth ! 

189 



Woods and Waters. 

To him, unseen of men, 
Like spring to groves of fir 

From where rainbows have been, 
She comes a minister ; 
His spirit but for her, 

Indeed, were dark and lone within I 

Yea, but for her the scent 
Of flowers would aggravate ; 

No hearts were marriage-bent ; 
The soul and song that mate 
And life were things that wait 

Inevitable extinguishment ! 



Joy would not thrill nor please, 
Nor faith find lodging-place ; 

Hope lighter than the breeze. 
And love but passion base, 
In her alluring face 

But for the charm the poet sees I 



Rejoicing, free from care, 
Essaying songs that win, 

Forgetting earth's despair 
As far from haunts of men. 
He lies en-wound within 

Her shining hyacinthine hair t 

190 



Beauty Ideal. 

'Tis she who makes me dare 

To do my better part ; 
For her, though ill I fare, 

I love my chosen art; 

She breathes into my heart 
And gilds the fleshless death's head there ! 

Her whispers that beguile, 

My listening spirit hears, 
Though clad in woe the while 

Life more divine appears. 

And Sorrow dries her tears 
And greets me with a gladdening smile ! 



191 



DEWDROPS. I 

WHAT are dewdrops ? The starry flowers ! 

Twinkling over yard and lawn ; ■ 

Spikes and splinters in windy showers ■ 

Riven from the florid dawn. ; 

What are dewdrops ? First words of love 

Spoken lowly like a prayer ; i 

Some find lodgment in hearts above, ■ 

Some are lost in sighs and air. \ 

What are dewdrops ? The baby's eyes ; 

Under lidlets waxen white ; [\ 

Fathered by the mysterious skies, j 

Shy they seek the sweet new light. i 

;i 
What are dewdrops ? These songs of mine, j 

Love's first leaflets blown apart ; \ 

Dewdrops lost in the vast sunshine, l 

Shaken from my trembling heart. I 

i 



192 



"THE EVENING LAND." 
(in answer to e, s. m.) 

OFAIR is the form that escorts you 
From a cHme overshadowed with woe, 
To a region whose beauty transports you, 

Whose dwellers but happiness know ; 
Where music and magical voices 

A marvelous rapture declare, 
And a permanent grandeur rejoices 
Song's votaries there ! 



For that is the glorious good-land 

Where troop the young fairies, I think. 
Which traverse the green aisles of the woodland 

And haunt the blue rivulet's brink, 
Whose meandering serpentine angles 

A soil ever emerald girds, 
While fountains abound in their tangles 

For vagabond herds. 



193 



Woods and Waters. 

There trees with Arcadian leaders 

Profusely luxurious appear, 
While their foliage like Lebanon cedars, 

Fades not through the beautiful year. 
And within their umbrageous dominions, 

Trills woo from the heart its despair, 
While a brilliancy flashes from pinions 

That soar through the air ! 



A land that requires no defender, 

Which teems with allurements that please,^ ' 

By suns of most opulent splendor 

Illumed over azurine seas. 
Song's ecstasies there re-awaken j 

And echo from groves that enshrine, i 

By love and romance unforsaken \ 

Which keep them divine ! \ 



Where love in your slumber gallants you. 

This golden embodiment floats, 
And from there in a scene that enchants you, 

You pour your bewildering notes. 
But remember, so fanciful is it, 

While rainbows above you expand. 
It is only in dreams that you visit 

This exquisite land ! 



194 



TO SOUTHERN SOLDIERS. 

TO sail the high seas over, 
To take the Cuban's part, 
Go from the fields of clover. 
Go from the clanging mart. 
Scarce time for love's caresses, 

Scarce time for pledge or vow,^ 
To isles that war distresses, 
O soldier, hasten now ! 



A noble mother bore you, 

A son of valiant sire, 
Whose lives shed lusters o'er you 

That stir the bosom's fire. 
Then seek some triumph's glory, 

Like Hobson, win a name, 
The land of song and story 

Will brighten with your fame ! 

As an illusion airy 

Whose loving look beguiles. 
Turn from the Southern fairy. 

Forego her pleasant smiles ; 
For she delays and harms you 

Who clings like blossomed vines,. 
As on a bough that charms you 

A green luxuriance twines. 

I9S 



Woods and Waters. 

But her sweet thoughts will follow, 

The morn you march away 
Like some new-clad Apollo, 

So handsome, brave and gay. 
Nor will they from you vanish, 

For her and glory's sake, 
In war against the Spanish, 

While you a name may make. 



In far-off western regions, 

In isles of tropic bloom, 
Attached to Freedom's legions 

Where Dewey's cannon boom. 
Whatever skies above you. 

Whatever seas divide, 
Some Southern girl will love you 

And wait to be your bride ! 



196 



FLORENCE. 

WHAT makes you sorrow, Florence ? 
What makes you grieve and pine ? 
My tears would flow in torrents 
If caused by me or mine ! 



The world is all before you, 
And youth that scorns despair 

Now sheds its splendors o'er you 
Which makes you very fair. 



Besides, among the Neros 

Whom here your heart disdains. 

The blood of Southern heroes 
Is bounding through your veins ! 

And here, nor time removes it, 
Mid Traffic's busy whirl, 

Your brother nobly proves it, 
Who saved a drowning girl. 



197 



Woods and Waters. 



You have admiring lovers 

As womanhood begins, 
For every youth discovers 

A charm in you that wins. 

Then wherefore sorrow, Florence? 

Or wherefore thus deceive? 
Go, treat with deep abhorrence 

The spells that make you grieve ! 

But truth, that touches pity, 
I'd have you ere we part 

To gather from my ditty, 
And bury in your heart ; 

There keep it many a morrow. 
Though you may deem it chaff; 

When you are sad, I sorrow. 
When you are glad, I laugh. 



198 



DANGERS. 

I LOVE the words and phrases 
And bathe them in my tears, 
And weave these poem-praises 
Which while your look endears, 
I breathe into your ears. 



Though your approval charms me, 
I feel, O lady dear, 

A prescience that alarms me 
And haunts me with a fear, 
Like Sorrow standing near ! 

Between your parted lashes 
In orbs of steel-like blue, 

I see responsive flashes 
Such potencies imbue, 
They thrill and shock me too ! 

"They are but roguish glances," 
Ah yes ! I know ! I know ! 

Like keen stiletto lances 
That strike unseen a blow. 
They perpetrate their woe ! 



199 



Woods and Wafers. 



As swift, as loving tender, 
As Cupid's glittering dart, 

Like winged shafts of splendor 
That leave a fatal smart, 
They pierce my helpless heart ! 

Harm on the patriot Fenian 
By grim assassin's dirk, 

Or heaped on frail Armenian 
By big remorseless Turk, 
The mischief that they work ! 

Yet lady, still look through me 
Till all the rose-buds burst, 

And though your eyes undo me. 
With heart and soul a-thirst 
I crave their very worst! 

For ties that long have bound me 
True friendship answereth. 

And with your arms around me 
If I should yield my breath, 
It were delicious death ! 



THE WILLOW. 

IN somber robe of leaf and bough. 
Like stolid monk upon his knees, 
Forever earthward droopest thou 
O Willow, Niobe of trees, 
And mournest even in faintest breeze ! 

Yet, sharest thou in loveliness 

With other trees on mundane shores, 

The joys that make earth's sorrows less. 
And all good things from Nature's stores,. 
Which Springtime o'er the forest pours ! 

When woods begin their blossomings, 

Some bird that helps to make them blest,, 

Amid thy boughs with folded wings. 
As deftly weaves its cherished nest, 
And carols with as sweet a zest ! 



The moon for thee her witchery weaves, 
The sun doth thee as gladly greet ; 

Bees clinging fondly kiss thy leaves, 
For dew they hold is also sweet, 
And bright flowers cluster at thy feet I. 



Woods and Waters. 



Yet dolorous still, with ceaseless tears, 
Consoleless through the merry springs, 

Thou mournest, finding naught that cheers 
In all earth's gayest, gladdest things. 
Like some lone heart that sorrow wrings ! 

Even when the seasons in their sweep 
Have borne thee past thy leafing day, 

Like trunks that haunt the Hovenweep, 
Thine standeth proof against decay, 
Until in worm-dust blown away ! 

Yet, mourn on . . . speechless in thy woe. 
Thou alien, mateless in our wood ! 

Mourn on ! Thy sorrows none shall know, 
But all shall feel the infinitude 
Whereof thou seem'st from birth imbued ! 



It may be, as the years increase. 

The oblivious shadow Death shall cast 

Above our altitudes of peace 

Yet, mourn on . . . unto breeze and blast, 
But Death himself shall die at last! 



NORA. 

SHE dreams of new romances 
Where'er she goes, 
And Joy before her dances 
With cheeks of rose. 



Beside the gowns arrayed in 

That flash Uke wings, 
A freshness fragrance-laden 

Unto her clings. 

Her eyes ere love has sought her 

And fawn-like looks. 
Are like pellucid water 

To famished brooks. 



So, here where toil distresses 
One thing redeems, 

A thing that always blesses 
Her presence seems. 



203 



MY BELOVED. 

FOUR Stars from four quarters ascended, 
One eve when the grass was dew-wet; 
And Night with them happily blended,. 
When they in her temple had met : — 

A typical eve of thy birth, love, 

And the Stars were precursors of thine. 

Who bore from all parts of the earth, love. 
The beauty that makes thee divine. 

The Star from the land evergreen, dear. 
And that from bright Orient skies. 

With splendors they bore, may be seen, dear, 
In the liquidous depths of thine eyes. 



204 



My Beloved. 

\ 



The Star in the west that arose, sweet, 
The bloom of thy cheek still declares ; 

And the glory from regions of snows, sweet, 
Thy bosom inviolably wears. 

Thus thou, with a mien elevated. 
That eve in the halls of the air, 

Of Night and the stars wast created, 
Whose shadows still darken thy hair. 

What soul, O Beloved, could be mute, then, 
Aroused from its slumber by thee ? 

What wonder if lord of the lute, then. 
Thy loyalist worshiper be ? 



205 



A MUSICAL DUEL. 

IN a land ever sought by the singer 
Whose perishing hope it renews, 
Where the Nymphs and bright Oreads linger 

And shyest young Muse — 
There was waged an unusual duel 

Between, till one's eloquence fail, 
A musician impulsive and cruel 
And sweet nightingale. 

One eve ere a shadow encumbers, 
Came a clash in a vocalized glen ; 

One a trill from most magical numbers, 
One a moan from a rare violin. 

Their echoes in trees seemed to thicken 
And to tell of the test yet to come — 

Every creature with silence was stricken, 
The forest was dumb ! 



Then the bird, first assailant, uncloses 

Its beak and a melody swells 
From its throat like to showering roses, 

Or honey that strings from its cells ! 
Overwrought as by music's completeness, 

Its heart seemed to burst in the fray, 
While the youth with a marvelous sweetness 
Still played, winning the day ! 



206 



THE LAST ROSE. 

I'M glad I spy thee, lovely rose, 
Through brambles prying. 
With fallen leaves and early snows 
Around thee lying. 

Thy royal sisters, lonely queen, 

Long since departed. 
Left me a mourner unserene 

And broken-hearted. 



But all wherewith the skies endow 

Thy kindred fairest ! 
Most pure and perfect, clothes thee now 

With beauty rarest. 

And though the wind that bore the cold 

Hath somewhat stifled. 
No wanton thing with lips of gold 

Thy bloom hath rifled. 



207 



Woods and Waters. 



So I shall pluck thee, for I would 
For love's sake use thee; 

Ah, surely never maiden could 
Of hate refuse thee ! 



A thing so fair in life's to-day, 

Ere life's to-morrow, 
Should give some love-lorn heart for aye 

Surcease of sorrow. 



Go, queen of flowers to queen of mine, 

And sweetly woo her 
Glad memory back to days divine, 

Then whisper to her ! 



''Still fresh like me, with clouds o'erdrawn, 

'Mid snows descended, 
His love for thee doth blossom on 

Alive and splendid ! " 



208 



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